Dunsborough Vineyard

Karridale Vineyard

Our wines are produced from grapes grown on two estates – the first in Dunsborough where the winery and cellar door is located and the second called Three Hills in Karridale, 90 kilometres to the south. Both are within the Margaret River region that stretches from Cape Naturaliste to Cape Leeuwin. Dunsborough was planted from 1977 and Three Hills from 1994.

The Three Hills label is reserved for the best wines from the best years from our Three Hills vineyard.

After enjoying this article please enjoy the additional articles about our vineyards linked via the top left menu.

The Three Hills property was selected with the driving objective of crafting the finest wine in the world. The Estate comprises 135 hectares with some 23 hectares planted to red grape varieties and 14 to white. It reliably produces about 250 tons of fruit each year and supplies both the Three Hills and the Happs label.

The culmination of many years research, we purchased our first Karridale property in 1994, and a second adjacent property in 1997. These two properties together spread over three undulating hills. Each is crowned with magnificent red gums typical of the Karridale region.

The characteristics that give Margaret River its premium grape growing potential are most defined in the country south of Witchcliffe (within 20km of Cape Leeuwin). Here growing conditions for are as good as it gets. We experience cloud cover, brisk southerlies and cooler temperatures during summer and throughout the all important ripening period, but warm enough to ensure our grapes are fully ripened prior to picking. Ripening with a lower heat-load in the vital pre-vintage period ensures optimum aroma retention, complexity, and thus flavor development providing incredibly rich flavors and naturally balanced wines from a very wide range of grape varieties. This realizes, to a quite unusual degree, the best potential of that fragile vessel, the grape.

To overview the comprehensive research supporting the notion that this location is premier in the region see our 'Climate Research' pages.

For the story of how this property has been developed see 'The Development of Three Hills' under the tab "Our Story'

A farmers perspective on the land
This is a land of gently sloping hills, ancient soils and giant trees. Winters are mild in temperature but can be wild and wet - Augusta is rated as one of the windiest towns in the world. There are days of pelting rain where the wind dries you as fast as you get wet: Great golfing weather. Then there is the tempest that tries to peel the steel off the roof and deluging rain where you simply cannot step outside. For the vines it matters not, for in winter they're dormant, but we still need to complete pruning. Summers are dry with a fresh south-easterly sea breeze hurrying in by ten in the morning. One needs a well fitted hat and the occasional wash to get the salt out of the hair. The in-between seasons are a joy. The nights are balmy, the days humid and mild, and the air is still.

At the other extreme is the sensation of trying a new wine as the lees settle and its true character emerges, and one realizes that here, in this glass, is something special. Ultimately, unless the wines tell a story there is in fact, no story to be told.

We face the challenge for if furnishes us with an outstanding opportunity to produce wines of great stature from mid to late season varieties and real advantages with earlier varieties. Aromatic and seductive pinot noir is not out of the question, not every year, but perhaps every second or third. Great merlot, shiraz, cabernet, malbec, mourverdre, graciano, tempranillo, grenache and nebbiolo is possible almost every year. Semillon and chardonnay are a delight, viognier and sauvignon blanc a treat. This is an environment of singular interest and most generous potential.

Geography

The climate and soils of the south are different to that of Dunsborough. The soils are more recently derived from granites whereas the Dunsborough they are thinner lateritic residuals with the granites normally at greater depth. As far as critical aspects of climate are concerned Dunsborough has three times the Karridale heat load (hour degrees above 22 degrees C) in the ripening month for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and about twice the heat load for late ripening varieties.

Two creeks flow into the Glenarty that in turn empties into the Blackwood River a few kilometres to the east. These hills are part of the eastern edge of the Leeuwin Naturaliste Ridge, the resistant granite block that rebuffs the aggressive swells of the Indian Ocean. This ridge was once an island until the land rose or the ocean fell revealing the plains that stretch from Busselton to the Scott River. The soils of the ridge are derived from Granites. The hills are crowned with majestic stands of Marri (Eucalyptus Diversicolour) with the occasional Jarrah (Eucalyptus Marginata) and Peppermint (Agonis Flexuosa). Soils are relatively deep but thin down as they descend into the valleys. Winter rainfall is heavy and variable at between thirty to sixty inches but confined to the months of May through till September.

Karridale still has areas of spectacular forest. At Three Hills, majestic Marris (Red Gum) still dominate the skyline, having been left by the cattle and sheep farmers who painstakingly cleared this land in the Group Settlement era. But there are still eighty acres of 'old growth forest' that show us what the country was like in its original state.

Geography:
The Dunsborough site is sheltered from the westerly winds. The natural vegetation is Jarrah and Marri with an under story of Peppermint and Ti-tree and drought resistant shrubbery that flowers quite profusely in spring. All these plants and trees are surface feeders, recycling nutrient as it becomes available from the mulch layer. Even with the trees, the roots are very close to the surface. The soils are extremely ancient and heavily leached. There is commonly a sandy gravel at the surface over dense yellow kaolonitic clays generally showing within a metre of the surface. Lateritic ironstone perches on the ridges. There is some alluvial wash in the valleys which has been partly in-filled with grey clayey sands when the sea was higher than it is today, an important source of water. The surface soils are described as Mungite Sands, are collectively weak and perforce we have learned the value of mulching. The forest grows on the mulch layer and so too must the vines.

A run of awards for early Ports led to the planting of the Portuguese varieties Touriga, Souzao and Tinta Cao.

John Gladstones had recommended the planting of the Muscat a Petit Grains because he considered that ripening temperatures near Busselton would be very similar to the Frontignan area in the South of France. Presented with the first wine he suggested we call it Garnet because of the resemblance of its colour to that of the garnet stone. This is a vine that was brought by the early settlers who obtained it from the Constantia vineyard in Cape Town. You can see an old vine at Wonnerup House.

Although Erl's passion was for dry red wine, his wife Ros suggested we broaden the range into white varieties. Thus encouraged we planted Chardonnay. Inspired by Barry Thompson, vineyard manager at Sandalford, we planted Verdelho. When a sweet Verdelho took out a Sheraton gold medal, the Happs late picked style was established. The light pink wine Fuchsia has been hugely successful in Western Australia. Originally it was primarily produced from the reds grown in Dunsborough.