After 28 consecutive vintages at Margaret River’s high-profile Leeuwin Estate winery, chief winemaker Bob Cartwright has decided against a 29th. He is retiring on September 30.
After 28 consecutive vintages at Margaret River’s high-profile Leeuwin Estate winery, chief winemaker Bob Cartwright has decided against a 29th. He is retiring on September 30.
Ironically Mr Cartwright, who helped establish an international reputation for Australian wine with the benchmark chardonnays he produced at Leeuwin, made his first chardonnay in a 44-gallon drum.
At the time, in 1974, he was working for the long-gone Valencia Vineyard in the Swan Valley and that is how the fruit was brought into the winery from the Moondah Brook vineyard at Gingin, 85 kilometres north of Perth.
Mr Cartwright recalled that it was such a small lot, it was decided to ferment it in the drum.
As he sampled that coarse, full bodied unwooded wine, never could he have imagined he would go on to make such outstanding Leeuwin flagship wines.
Interestingly, the Margaret River icon’s chardonnay cuttings came from the Moondah Brook vineyard.
Mr Cartwright’s first Leeuwin vintage amounted to just 19 tonnes. Today, its annual crush is about 1,200t.
Previously, he had come from Nuriootpa in the Barossa Valley, where his father was a painter and decorator.
Mr Cartwright joined Kaiser Stuhl when he left school and a chance spell in the laboratory led to winemaking studies.
Back at Kaiser after graduation, good friend Wolf Blass suggested he try his skills with Houghton-Valencia in Western Australia.
Today he admits his first vintage at Leeuwin was a nervous affair because of the connection between principal Denis Horgan and California wine giant Robert Mondavi which, given their status, created an enormous focus on the winery.
For most of his years at Leeuwin, Mr Cartwright teamed with viticulturist John Brocksopp, who claims the best chardonnay fruit produced is “like a princess; everything is smooth, fine and silky”.
Mr Cartwright, 58, says the Leeuwin highlights have been to work with a family-owned company and to have the chardonnay recognised by an American critic as Australia’s best white wine.
In more recent vintages, he has made 11 wines for Leeuwin, including a bubbly each year.
But the chardonnay’s red twin, the cabernet sauvignon, has never reached the same heights.
Mr Cartwright argues there is nowhere in the world where outstanding white and red wines grow side by side.
Even so, he is dismayed the red wines have not had the recognition he believes they deserve as top quality wines.
While Margaret River is today a bustling place bursting at the seams, Mr Cartwright said in 1978 it was a one-horse town without a horse.
“You could shoot a cannon down the street and not hit anyone,” he once said.
“It was a very, very economically depressed area. Now Margaret River is one of wine’s most influential areas.”
In terms of the present wine industry over-production, Mr Cartwright said expansion at Margaret River had been as rapid as other areas.
“When everything is going well, everyone gets on the bandwagon,” he said. “But grape growing is cyclical and the industry will get out of this, though unfortunately, some will be hurt on the way.
“This is a hiccup. The industry has a bright future. But it has to concentrate on high quality, profile wines.”
In his retirement Mr Cartwright will live in Busselton and plans to take on consultancy work.
His deputy of eight years, Paul Atwood, will take over his role at Leeuwin.
