INSIDER: Gamble on grape expectations of Frankland River pays off for visionary Matt Swinney

It is a memory that continues to haunt Matt Swinney today — 20,000 merino sheep, give or take, being rounded into trucks in the long driveway of the family farm at Frankland River. It was 1997 and the market for merino wool had free fallen into the abyss following the collapse of the wool reserve price scheme a few years earlier. The sheep’s back had finally buckled under the weight of 4.7 million bales of unsold wool nationwide. Swinney had otherwise been observing the fallout of the Australian Wool Corporation scandal from a guarded distance, fashioning a corporate career as a cocksure market analyst for Brent Stewart’s firm Market Equity. But, with the family farm — established by his great-grandfather George “Farvie” Swinney in 1922 — at a perilous juncture, the 28-year-old found himself racing south out of Perth with a radical plan for survival. “The vision for me is still acute: all these trucks going down the drive full of sheep, and me just thinking: ‘I hope this is a good idea’,” recalls Swinney. “There were sleepless nights. My dad is the bravest man I know: I was a 28-year-old grommet with a business plan … and he backed it.” Nearly three decades on the visual cues of the young Swinney’s blueprints have now come to define the land settled by his ancestors. At the northern reaches of the farm — with its brooks and creeks and prone to seasonal waterlogging — towering blue gums keep sentry over the horizon. The sustainable plantation (known by the botanical designation eucalyptus globulus) was a major tenet of this systemic reimagining of the farm, and contracted to Japanese giant Oji Paper Company for 24 years. It is further south, however, that the Swinney legacy has been truly etched into the landscape. Here, where the region’s eponymous river has sculpted its way to the Southern Ocean, an arcadia of vineyards now undulates beyond the frontiers of vision and imagination. Swinney did not need to journey far to uncover evidence as to the viticultural potential of Frankland River. Across the asphalt, Alkoomi Wines had already undergone such a transition away from the traditional pillars of grain and livestock, planting a few hectares of grapes in 1971. Frankland Estate would follow, with pundits soon after proclaiming the cool climes and ironstone gravel of Frankland River as the new promised land for riesling and shiraz. Potential gave way to provenance. The 1990s, however, would not be marked as a time of great subtlety or refinement in Australian wine. Pundits preferred their wines big, with thorny tannins, inky fruit and bombastic booze levels enough to fell a Test cricketer. It was a heady predilection carried over from the table wine days of the 1970s and 80s, reinforced by a tenfold increase in international exports by the end of the 1990s. Demand, however, was beginning to outrun supply and Swinney recognised his moment, securing a 10-year forward sales agreement with BRL Hardy — now Accolade Wines — before a sapling was even interred in the ruddy-hued loam. Originally inaugurated as Wilson’s Pool in 1998, 83ha of cabernet and shiraz were sown on the farm and would soon enough be in bottle as some of the country’s most recognisable — and awarded — wine brands, among the iconic Houghton label. With the farm wrestled back from the precipice, Swinney returned to his rapidly-evolving corporate life — eventually relocating to London and establishing an advisory business specialising in renewable energy, including major windfarm projects in Brazil and Portugal. By the 2010s, now as managing director of Wildhorse Energy, Swinney had turned his attention to gas and uranium mining in central and eastern Europe, forging a joint venture with the Hungarian Government. The Fukushima disaster of 2011, however, would irrevocably alter the global appetite for uranium. Swinney would return home to WA in 2014 after a decade largely estranged from his homeland and the farm. He dabbled in domestic renewables but found his interest in the family business and its agricultural heritage had only become increasingly more manifest in his absence. “I initially thought I’d just do the business plan, reconfigure the farm and then go back to my corporate life — and that’s what I largely did,” he states. “But there was always something else there. A greater vision.” On his return Swinney optioned to buy out his investors in Wilson’s Pool and set about purchasing three neighbouring vineyards, including the adjacent Powderbark site. Swinney was increasingly sensitive to the subtle harbingers of change in the wine industry: a gradual consumer migration to cool climate wines, the rise of alternative varietals and an increasing focus on provenance. And while the relationship with Accolade remained fundamental to the sustainability of the business, he recognised a need to rapidly diversify income streams to ensure long-term survival in a market that was soon to be racing headlong into a crisis of oversupply and an over-reliance on Chinese exports. “I knew having one customer was not the way to optimise your returns, so I changed the model to become more of a bespoke grape grower,” Swinney explains. “So, while we have scale, we think of ourselves as a number of very, very small vineyards.” This transformation required a detailed geological survey and three-dimensional mapping, including EM38 electro-magnetic measurements of water retention and radiometric surveys of soil type: data more often employed in the resources sector. This data enabled the team to identify distinct tranches of land by elevation, gradient and soil type — with the premium sites generally ironstone gravel with a north-eastern aspect. The endgame was a complex and often non-linear jigsaw puzzle that could then be prescribed to buyers according to varietal, soil-type, ripeness and price point — requiring multiple passes by hand-pickers over many weeks (a perfectly antediluvian prospect in an epoch of machine harvesting). This obsessive attention to detail in the vineyard by viticulturalists Lee Haselgrove and his successor Rhys Thomas has, however, made Swinney’s some of the most in-demand fruit in Australia, with customers today including wine bar staples such as LS Merchants, La Violetta and Battles, as well as giants such as Treasury Wines Estates including its heirloom Penfolds range. In a typical year Swinney supplies fruit to between 40 and 50 customers. “It’s expensive viticulture,” he declares unapologetically. “It is obsessive, uncompromising attention to detail. We formed a clear understanding that world-class wine simply can’t be world-class without world-class vineyards and world-class viticulture.” It is this maxim that has seen Frankland River emerge — along with the broader Great Southern region — as a serious counterpoint to Margaret River. As one of Australia’s cooler wine regions, the fruit enjoys a long and steady ripening period that enables softer tannins with lifted aromatics and more bridled alcohol volumes — with “elegance” the common descriptor employed from the prismatic lexicon of wine-speak. European-style shiraz (syrah) and riesling were by now being positioned as Frankland River’s totemic varietal pair, to rival the august dyad of cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay from Margaret River. With his fruit now in increasing demand, however, Swinney was fine-tuning a plan that would derail this convenient narrative and completely rewire the story of viticulture and winemaking in Australia. “People genuinely thought I was stark barking mad,” he deadpans of his decision to pursue grenache and mourvedre: varietals typically associated with Australia’s more sultry climes, such as McLaren Vale, the Barossa and WA’s Swan Valley. Indeed, when Swinney had years earlier sought to commission a report from WA’s pre-eminent agricultural scientist John Gladstones on the potential for grenache at Frankland River he received a cordial silence. “It simply wasn’t thought possible,” Swinney guffaws. But while his apparent folly on varietal suitability was one thing, his decision to grow his grenache and mourvedre as bush vines — a seemingly anachronistic proposition in the age of increasingly efficient and productive trained growing systems — was decidedly reckless, with the only other examples in WA found in the rapidly ageing vineyards of the Swan Valley. Differentiated from trellised or espaliered plants, bush vines are three-dimensional structures grown and pruned as self-supporting traditional fruit trees. More consequentially, bush vines are less vigorous than trained vines and have a proclivity to root deep making them drought tolerant, with a tendency for notable fruit concentration and, ultimately, a genuine manifestation of the winemaking game’s holy grail: terroir. “I personally never thought he was mad,” Mark Hohnen says of Swinney’s decision to throw the rule book out the window. As co-founder (and inaugural chair) of Cape Mentelle and Cloudy Bay, Hohnen and his brothers David and Giles were true pioneers and mavericks in the contemporary antipodean wine scene, laying the template for all that would follow. Hohnen had first crossed paths with the ambitious young Swinney while the latter was establishing his grape and forestry businesses, and the pair would later come to collaborate in the resources sector (where Hohnen has helmed, amongst other entities, the AIM-listed Kalahari Minerals as well as Bacanora Lithium). “Matt was a very bright young guy — a perfectionist,” Hohnen offers. “I have been a great supporter of those trying new things. People like Jeff Burch (Burch Family Wines/Howard Park) and Nigel Gallop (Fraser Gallop Estate) — everyone criticised Nigel when he said he wasn’t going to irrigate (his vineyard), but it worked. Matt copped that too — he did things differently, but look at the results. Matt is at the forefront.” It was this maverick sensibility — equally calculated as contentious, in what he reflectively designates an “educated punt” — that Swinney finally decided to begin producing his own wine under the family moniker in 2010: among them dry grown grenache and a Rhone-style syrah, positioned in the mid-range price bracket. But what came next proved his boldest and most daring play yet: fashioning a range that would not only encapsulate the full potential of Frankland River, but be spoken about in concert with some of the most acclaimed wines in the world. After some early experimentation, Swinney convened his sister Janelle, viticulturalist Lee Haselgrove and storied winemaker Rob Mann — grandson of oenological paragon Jack, and who Swinney credits as “the last vital piece in the puzzle” — to sample the inaugural 2018 wines post-fermentation. “At that moment we just knew…” Swinney recalls, his words trailing off. Those two wines would become known as the 2018 Farvie grenache and syrah, named in honour of his intrepid great-grandfather. Greatness, however, was anything but certain. Convinced they had the juice, Swinney and his team now needed to build a brand and aesthetic to deliver the product. Having worked in luxury brand marketing in London for the likes of Giorgio Beverly Hills, as well as launching the Kailis Pearls brand at home in Australia, Janelle Swinney was fatefully positioned to deliver on the Swinney’s bold ambition. “In my mind, the best luxury brands have a clear vision and are extremely focused,” she says. “They know what they are and what they are not — they have a clear DNA, and they’re uncompromising in their standards and particularly their attention to detail at every step.” In 2020, the 2018 Farvies were in the hands of the critics. The siblings’ strategy for Farvie was international from the outset: conscious that Australian consumers remained stubbornly predisposed to international validation, but also as the styles they were benchmarking against included the aromatic cool-clime and aromatic reds of Europe, including the Rhone and northern Italy. The reviews were effusive, almost to the point of awkwardness. Global wine maven Jancis Robinson wrote floridly: “The fruit, the whole fruit and almost nothing but the fruit … not like any other grenache or garnacha I have come across…”. Fellow Brit Matthew Jukes would follow with an almost perfect score of 19.5/20 for the grenache: the highest marks he has ever prescribed to a debut vintage. Although Swinney feigns no prophetic tendencies, his “barking mad” predilection for maligned varietals was proving fortuitous. Now 2024 welcomes the fifth Farvie vintage; and the first release of the full trilogy of Farvie wines, with mourvedre, grenache and syrah. In late 2023, the Swinneys would audaciously illustrate their global ambitions for Farvie with a tasting benchmarked against the world’s most coveted wines, not least the 2018 Alvaro Palacios L’Ermita Priorat, 2020 Casa Castillo Pie Franco Monastrell, 2018 Guigal La Turque and 2021 Domaine Marc Sorrel Hermitage Le Greal. With many of these wines retailing in the thousands per bottle, it was a brassy move in a market inveigled as much by lore as liquid. Despite its successes the Swinney family story remains in a perpetual state of evolution, with a premium mourvedre rosé shock-and-aweing the market last year and the purchase of Brookland Valley Estate on Caves Road in Margaret River in 2022: albeit Swinney will not be drawn on his long-term plans for the site. Atop a granite hill on a remote part of the family property rests a tiny wooden cabin. It has no power or running water, but has a convivial wooden table with surrounding benches and a meditative 360-degree view of the farm. It is a world removed from the gilt wine bars and fabled chophouses of London, Sydney and Tokyo, where Swinney’s wines command significant attention and currency. It is a place of absolute quietude and contemplation. “Nothing happens in a hurry,” Swinney concludes, invoking the family motto Quo Fata Vocant (whither the fates call) and acknowledging the vital roles his sister Janelle and parents Graham and Kaye — plus the indispensable Mann and Thomas — play in the business. “I’ve always understood the importance of being authentic and differentiating yourself. I might have a vision and be audacious, but this is a family story. It has always been about doing what we do and doing it well. Nothing can be rushed. This is the sum of four generations.”

INSIDER: Gamble on grape expectations of Frankland River pays off for visionary Matt Swinney

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