When it comes to standard wine areas, many people would instantly consider France or Italy. But additionally equally famend are wines from Australia, particularly from the area of Margaret River. The world has local weather circumstances that guarantee the vineyards produce the finest grapes required for making a few of the best-known Cabernet Sauvignons.

Wendy Stimpson, considered one of the house owners of Passel Property, speaks extra about what Margaret River has to provide and takes us via the journey she launched into along with her husband in establishing their little paradise, Passel Property.

You and your husband Barry originate from England and South Africa respectively. How did you uncover and fall in love with Margaret River?

Whereas dwelling in Hong Kong we visited Barry’s childhood pal from Cape City, who’s now settled in Perth. He took us to Margaret River, understanding that we’d fall in love with the lovely pure panorama and beautiful wines. The world is paying homage to the Cape Winelands the place Barry grew up.

You settled in Margaret Valley in 2005. When did you formally set up Passel Property and begin managing it as a enterprise?  

We constructed our dwelling in Margaret River in 2005 however proceed to divide our time between Western Australia and Asia. We discovered the beautiful property in 2011, which is now Passel Property, and have been managing it ever since. We expanded the winery, constructed the tasting room and began producing wines beneath our personal Passel Property label from the 2015 classic assortment.

The Margaret River wine area is situated in the distant southwest nook of Australia. It stretches 100km from North to South, surrounded by ocean on three sides. How necessary is maritime affect on the area’s viticulture?

Passel Property’s proximity to the ocean and the regional maritime-influenced local weather are essential parts of our terroir. It means there’s ample rainfall throughout the winter to fill our dams and arrange the soils to nourish the growing vines via the subsequent rising season. Later, the cooling sea breezes average the summer time warmth temperatures, permitting the grapes to ripen gently via to harvest, leading to exceptional-quality fruit. The constant ripening circumstances offered by the maritime-influenced local weather are particularly necessary for Cabernet Sauvignon, considered one of the varieties that Margaret River is most well-known for, and we produce two beautiful examples of this wine at Passel Property.

The winery was first planted in 1994 and comprised 1.5ha every of Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz at the moment. Further plantings of Shiraz (1.1ha) and Chardonnay (2.6ha) had been later established. How is the winery doing as of at this time, do you may have extra growth plans?

After we acquired the property, there have been well-established vineyards of Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz, which with the assist of our very skilled viticulturist, Andy Ferreira, at the moment are producing a few of their most interesting fruit. We now have since expanded the winery significantly, most lately with new plantings of Chardonnay. We now have plans to plant one other fragrant white grape in the close to future and to produce a Crémant type glowing to add to our vary.

Extremely skilled winemaker Bruce Dukes has been working intently with you and your husband. How strategic has been his contribution to Passel Property over the previous years?

We approached Bruce to make our wines due to his stellar fame as a world-class winemaker and our shared philosophy to produce the highest high quality wines that reply to the particular grapes and circumstances of every classic. We now have quite a lot of enjoyable working with Bruce. It’s a very collaborative relationship, however we’ll at all times observe his steering on particular winemaking selections to guarantee we ship on our promise to produce the most elegant and balanced wines attainable that specific the winery and Passel Property’s distinctive place in the Margaret River area.

As a part of your dedication to sustainable and ESG-focused viticulture, you may have lately welcomed a flock of native sheep to graze in your winery throughout winter. Is that this the first step into sustainable viticulture, are different actions and transformations deliberate?

Together with the ongoing care and preservation of huge areas of native bushland on the property as a part of our dedication to wildlife conservation at Passel Property, we now have adopted sustainable viticulture practices from the very begin and can shortly obtain formal sustainability accreditation for our wines.

We welcome sheep from a neighbouring farm to our winery each winter for grazing. The sheep hold our winery tidy with out the use of equipment they usually enhance the soil high quality with their foraging and excrements as pure fertiliser! Sheep agistment at Passel Property advantages the animal, the farmers, our winery and the surroundings.

We even have established beehives in the winery to assist pollinate the winery cowl crops and guarantee a wholesome and numerous winery ecosystem. The winery honey we hand acquire is on the market to purchase in the tasting room and all the proceeds go in direction of additional conservation at the property.

Our conservation efforts really pre-date the launch of our wines and it is a vital facet of our sustainable winery operations. Passel Property has been a sanctuary for endangered Western Ringtail Possums since we acquired the property, following a devastating bushfire in Margaret River which destroyed a lot of their habitat. We now have continued to work with conservation teams to assist Western Ringtail Possums ever since. We now have put in mushy launch enclosures at the property and the household (or passel) of possums we now have rehabilitated via them are thriving. We’re additionally seeing an elevated abundance of wildlife, birds and frogs at the property as we proceed to nurture and improve the pure bushland areas.

Do you welcome guests and wine lovers at Passel Property?

Sure, we now have a fantastically appointed tasting room, the place we welcome guests to style our wines surrounded by views of our winery and bushland sanctuary. The tasting room is open day by day, and we provide a spread of guided tasting experiences, together with a Nature & Wine Stroll which entails a non-public tour of our bushland conservation sanctuary and a tasting in situ alongside the very vines that went into the wine.

With the arrival of spring in Margaret River, we now have simply relaunched our Wine Sunsets at Passel Property, which is a stunning means to spend the night throughout the hotter months. On request, visitors get pleasure from an after-hours tasting on Friday or Saturday night, adopted by a glass of their favorite Passel Property wine alongside a platter of native, artisanal cheese as the solar units over the vines. Then as nightfall falls, they depart with a complimentary bottle of Passel Property wine and chocolate-encased bonbons designed to pair completely with it, to end the night at dwelling.

It’s mandatory to e-book our tasting experiences prematurely (and really straightforward to achieve this through our web site). A portion of the payment for all of our experiences goes instantly to our conservation tasks at the property.

Throughout quieter durations, guests are additionally welcome to drop in to get pleasure from a glass of wine and a platter on the deck or a picnic blanket on the garden.

Which wine from the property would you decide for a extra formal dinner composed of beef or wild recreation meat?

You can not go unsuitable with our Passel Property Lot 71 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. This particular wine is just made in distinctive vintages in small portions and is a surprising expression of Margaret River cabernet sauvignon. It’s produced from a single block of our cabernet sauvignon fruit with prolonged maturation in fantastic French oak barriques, over half of that are new, adopted by additional maturation in bottle earlier than it’s launched.

The mushy velvety tannins of this wine, with its black fruit flavours and secondary notes of espresso and fig will pair completely with a tasty roast beef or wild recreation dish.

Which wine from the property would you decide for a lighter lunch?

For a lighter lunch right here in Singapore — I’m considering goats cheese salad and a light-weight salmon or fish dish — the Passel Property Sauvignon Blanc is the excellent alternative. With its partial oak ferment, this sauvignon blanc has the complexity to stability together with your lunch, but the recent citrus fruit flavours and vibrant acidity hold it appetising, gentle and scrumptious all through the heat, tropical afternoon.

How do you view Margaret River wine lovers in Asia versus European or American common wine drinkers? How do their style or requests differ?

Our guests from Singapore and Hong Kong are very educated about Margaret River and plenty of have a wonderful palate, with a desire for fuller bodied pink wines and chardonnay; guests from additional afield are sometimes much less accustomed to the area and steadily stunned by the distinctive high quality and class of our wines. Few realise that Margaret River is the smallest main wine producing area in Australia, however accounts for the highest share of premium Australian wine made.

The place can our readers buy wine from Passel Property in Singapore? Any wine-focused ecommerce platform you’ll suggest?   

We now have a wine membership right here in Singapore, which might be joined on-line. patrons may also buy our wines instantly via our web site.

Different stockists in Singapore embody Le Rouge, The Cheese Store and Surrey Hills Grocer, and we’re privileged that our wines may also be discovered on the wine listing at a few of the main eating places in Singapore.

Your private favorite reminiscence of working collectively together with your husband at Passel Property?

Creating Passel Property collectively, rising our wine enterprise and taking good care of our beautiful property gives common moments of pleasure for us. One among my private favorite reminiscences is of the night we celebrated the launch of Passel Property wines and formally opened the tasting room.

Wadandi cultural custodian, Josh Whiteland carried out an unimaginable “Welcome to Nation” ceremony to welcome us to the ancestral lands and we had been blessed with a surprising sundown and nightfall moon, surrounded by our mates and members of the area people who had helped make every thing attainable. It was the fruits of 1 lengthy bold journey collectively and the begin of a brand new one. As Barry mentioned throughout the speeches that night, “watch out about chasing your desires, they’ve a means of main to the subsequent one, and the subsequent one…”

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