Land of Plenty

No other region in Australia boasts as many winery restaurants but with its agricultural bounty, lush landscape and 60,000-year Aborigine history, there’s more than just wine to Margaret River.

Words: Julia Keady  Photographs: Rob Firth

Neatly tucked away in Western Australia’s south-west corner, the 30km by 110km wine-producing region of Margaret River is consistently praised for its intoxicating landscape and world-class wines. Just 25 years ago this lush countryside, with its 120cm annual rainfall, was the private paradise of the local farming and viticulture crowd as well as surfers and artists. Not until the early 1980s, when Margaret River wines started eclipsing other regions in the show arena, did the rest of Australia sit up and take notice.

Though the big business of wine production has inevitably etched itself into Margaret River’s way of life, it still retains a simple purity. And while the wineries remain a drawcard, it’s the region’s natural playground that attracts the 2.1 million visitors who came last year. There are more than 300 caves to explore, 130km of beaches and reefs between Cape Naturaliste and Cape Leeuwin, thick forests, some 70 surfing breaks, giant limestone cliffs and the pristine Margaret River itself. Despite the impact of the timber trade boom years in the late 1880s, there’s still an echo of the area’s 60,000-year Aboriginal occupation and homesteads such as majestic Ellensbrook House and Basildene Manor look back to the hard times endured by early settlers.

Margaret River township, lying 10km inland, was gazetted in 1913, just before the Western Australian government decided the state required its own dairy industry and set up a settlement scheme to rebate landholders and give families incentives to migrate south. Like many rural Australian communities between 1930 and 1970, Margaret River saw dairy, beef and timber industries thriving then declining.

In the mid-1960s grape growing was introduced as a way of diversifying in lean times. One of the most important documents in the history of Margaret River soon emerged – a report that rated the region’s climatic and growing conditions as similar to France’s premier wine region, Bordeaux. The first commercial enterprise was what is now the estate of Vasse Felix. Bill and Sandra Pannell launched Moss Wood in 1969, Evans and Tate (already prominent in Western Australia’s Swan Valley) opened in 1971 and since then a procession of wine lovers have planted their piece of Margaret River land with vines. Names such as Denis Horgan of Leeuwin Estate and David Hohnen of Cape Mentelle helped put Margaret River on the map as a premier producer of cabernet and chardonnay.

No other wine region in Australia boasts as many winery restaurants, their kitchens run by some of Western Australia’s finest chefs. As well as its 80-plus wineries, Margaret River overflows with a rich array of produce. Whether it’s olive oil, chutney, venison, chocolate, fruit, cheese or richly roasted coffee that boils your kettle, you’ll find yourself in God’s own kitchen in Margaret River.

A trace of dairying still remains in the maze of country tracks between the region’s attractions. In springtime the cows must be almost blinded by the fluorescent green pastures just bursting with goodness. Some enterprising minds have capitalized on this lushness. Garth Simpson of Simmo’s Ice Creamery is one. He launched his own unique brand of ice cream many years ago, starting with a daring baked bean number.

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