WA on point in a year of superstars

AS we enter the silly season each year, I like to look back over my collection of tasting notes for the previous 12 months.

It’s a time for me to reflect and look for trends and highlights.

Among the notes are more than 660 Western Australian wines that were assessed as part of my research and preparation for the release of my new book, the WA Wine Review 2023.

But of course, while the state’s wines are of great importance to me, my database also contains hundreds of other wines from around Australia.

It has been a busy year of tasting that shows yet again – despite all the issues with the loss of the Chinese market and balancing supply with reduced demand – the quality of Australian, particularly WA wines, has never been better.

A highlight for me is looking for the best of the best, particularly in WA.

This year it was ridiculously difficult, with five wines scoring 99 points and a swag of others that got 98 points.

The five superstars were: the Cullen Wines Full Moon Fruit Day Vanya 2019; Voyager Estate MJW cabernet sauvignon 2018; Swinney Farvie grenache 2020; Leeuwin Estate Art Series chardonnay 2019; and the Vasse Felix Tom Cullity cabernet malbec 2018.

All truly great wines. In the end I gave my wine of the year to the remarkable game-changing, genre-defining Swinney Farvie grenache 2020, but I have to tell you there is very little in it.

When you taste a collection such as this you can only draw the conclusion that, variety for variety and style for style, WA is producing the finest wines in the country.

And these are increasingly becoming international styles that are more attuned to the palates of the old world while not compromising on the power and fruit intensity that is synonymous with Australian and WA wines.

The standard of the cabernets and chardonnays from recent vintages has been remarkable and most good judges would support the notion that the best examples of these varieties are coming from WA. However, other varieties are becoming increasingly important.

Grenache is one to have come of age in recent years, in WA and the rest of the country, as winemakers pursue a more refined and less-robust style that captures those essential varietal perfumes.

And shiraz.

The emergence of Frankland River has introduced another dimension to WA shiraz.

Increasingly, wines from this region are labelled ‘syrah’, reflecting their less-opulent style and showing the significance of new clonal-influenced stylish diversity of this variety.

I was also very impressed with the rieslings I have seen this year.

Those from the Porongurup, Mt Barker and Frankland River are exceptional and hopefully will lead to a reawakening of this variety on the consumer palate.

Other varieties, such as fiano and vermentino, have also established themselves and provide an alternative when looking for something different at this time of the year.

It really has been a great year for WA wines and this week I have chosen three excellent value whites that are perfect drinking now.

They show the depth in the quality of WA wine at all price points. And a little plug for my first attempt at self-publishing: the WA Wine Review 2023 is in good bookstores in time for Christmas.

• Ray Jordan is one of Australia’s most experienced and respected wine journalists, contributing to newspapers and magazines over more than 40 years. In 2017 he co-authored The Way it Was: The History of the early years of the Margaret River Wine Region.