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 There has been a quiet consolidation going on at Lenton Brae in recent months aimed at improving
fruit quality and ultimately, securing the estate’s
future.
And the early indications of success are in the
bottle.
A few years ago, owners Bruce and Jeanette
Tomlinson and winemaker son Edward, had a
good hard look at the then property, now
vineyard, they had bought from Moss Wood
founder Bill Pannell in 1982.
The decision was to focus on Margaret River and
work with what they had - nine hectares of the
17ha property under vine spread over a hilltop in
the premium Willyabrup Valley.
"If we are not going to get big (around 8,000 cases
a year), we must get the quality and consistency
right. The place was pretty much planted out, so it
was a matter of making the best use of what we
had,” Edward remembers.
Lenton Brae is now two years into a five-year
programme aimed at fine-tuning the vineyard,
maximising plantings, introducing new clones and
varieties, improving fruit quality to make better
wine and thereby secure the vineyard’s future.
Good plan when you say it quickly, but it involved
some tough decisions and hard work since,
assisted by new technology and wine practices
developed over the last 20 years.
Old stocks were ripped out, most transplanted,
new clones and varieties added, and new trellising
and pruning regimes imposed.
Yields have fallen - Semillon from 14t per hectare
to 8-10tph and Chardonnay and Cabernet
Sauvignon down to 8tph. But the fruit quality— flavours and concentrations, particularly among
the reds — has improved out of sight. There is
also much better uniformity within the vineyard.
“We recently transplanted some of our existing
mature Gin Gin clone Chardonnay, which cost us
a year’s fruit, planted new clones in its place and
created space for more of the new clones. Both the
new and old are flourishing.
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