Winery Profile:
There's no more pleasant distraction when in the Margaret River Wine Region than taking a few days to meander around the small wineries, tasting the wonderful range of wine styles now available in the region.

More often than not, visitors will come away with a swag of great, yet sometimes little-known wines to add to the cellar or enjoy soon after purchase.

And, of course, if you can't make it out to the wineries you can always drop into the Wine Centre and we will go through them with you.

Our Autumn selection features wines from some of the newer shining lights among the regional boutique wineries. Five of the six wineries are under five years old, however they are already winning medals and achieving great things in their own right.

One of the newest is Settlers Ridge. The winery is situated close to the region's oldest commercial winery in the outstanding vine country of Willyabrup.

Settlers Ridge, which has full organic accreditation, hit the ground running with its first vintage in 1997. It immediately picked up a silver medal at the prestigious Perth Royal Show for its delightful Shiraz/Cabernet.

No herbicides or pesticides are used in the vineyard and the wine is produced to world wide organic standards using a naturally occurring sulphur in minimal quantities. All the fruit is soft basket pressed in the traditional manner to enhance fruit flavours.

Another youngster is the Metricup winery Beckett's Flat, which is also pulling in awards at a rapid rate. Both Becketts Flat wines in our Autumn Selection are award-winners. The Cabernet having won a Gold Medal at the 1998 Small Winemakers Show and a Silver at the Perth Royal Show, and the Oak Matured Semillon Sauvignon Blanc winning a Silver at the Small Winemakers Show.

Owners Noni and Bill Ilic have selected grape varieties ideally suited to the soils and microclimate in this central region of the appelation. Vines are hard-pruned and hand-picked with the fruit processed on site to produce premium quality dry and sweeter styles.

An older, but equally impressive, boutique winery is Vasse River Wines, which has a venerable record for producing highly approachable styles.

The family owned winery is situated towards the northern end of the Cape on rich gravelly red loam soils, which have been ideal for the development of premium wines. The winery has picked up several medals for its Chardonnay.

Small vineyards: the heart and soul of Margaret River

Although the Credaro family have farmed the property since 1922 (there were a few vines planted at the time for family use), wine is what has really put them on the map after commercial vines were planted in 1989. Marybrook is another northern winery with rising star status. Situated just two kilometres from the pristine waters of Geographe Bay, the vineyard grows on fertile marybrook red and black loams, which transfers to high quality, rich fruit used in winemaking.

Only hand labour is used for picking and selection. The Marybrook philosophy is to produce flavoursome wines that show powerful fruit freshness on the palate and which can be married perfectly with a variety of foods.

Situated in the same region is Deep Woods Estate, which is already producing six very respectable styles of wine. The whites feature outstanding crisp, fresh fruit characters typical of the region, while the Cabernet and Cabernet Reserve are among the finest coming out of this northern area, which has enormous potential.

Further south in the Margaret River region is Minot, already renowned for producing big flavoursome reds and complex fruit driven whites. Located five kilometres from the Margaret River coast, the 10 acre vineyard has a longer ripening time, allowing for subtle refinements to varietal fruit flavours.

The two wines from Minot featured in our Autumn selection were made by two of the region's top winemakers. Stuart Pym of Voyager Estate made the Semillon Sauvignon Blanc, and Andrew Forsell of Redgate Winery was the man behind the Cabernet Sauvignon.

If you want to know more about the region's exciting boutique wines, give us a call or pop in and see us at the Margaret River Regional Wine Centre. You'll be glad you did...its a gold mine out there!