Our Story - Vigneron's and the Winemaker
The Vigneron's
Whimwood Estate Wines is owned and operated by Maree Tinker and Steve Johnstone and is named with regard to the region’s past timber milling history, where horse drawn Whims were used for hauling logs out of the forest.
Our vineyard is situated alongside the Blackwood River near the old timber milling town of Nannup. Our boutique vineyard is located just 3 hours south of Perth, Western Australia in the Blackwood Valley wine region.
We fell in love with the property at first sight in 2011, without even knowing that it had a vineyard! “How hard can it be to make wine???”… We were off on a new adventure; leaving the city and corporate world behind.
The original vineyard was planted with Chardonnay vines in 2004 as contract grapes, along with a few Shiraz vines for personal use. We have downsized from 8,000 to 2,000 vines and increased the number of Shiraz vines by grafting onto the Chardonnay root stock.
We understand that to make great wine, it has to start at the vineyard! By reducing the number of vines we can concentrate on low yield and high complexity flavours; spend more time with the vines, closely monitor the fruit and be selective when hand picking the best grapes. This ensures excellent quality and controlled quantity for every vintage. I often say when tasting the wine "Can you taste the blood, sweat and tears??"
We also understand the importance of barrel fermentation. We spend a lot of time sourcing the right French oak, the right spice, toast and influential flavours. We select oak from single French forests (not blends). Our wines are in new and seasoned French oak barrels for 10-12 months.
With great people working with us, we have come a long way and are very pleased to be making award winning wines!
Our vineyard is situated alongside the Blackwood River near the old timber milling town of Nannup. Our boutique vineyard is located just 3 hours south of Perth, Western Australia in the Blackwood Valley wine region.
We fell in love with the property at first sight in 2011, without even knowing that it had a vineyard! “How hard can it be to make wine???”… We were off on a new adventure; leaving the city and corporate world behind.
The original vineyard was planted with Chardonnay vines in 2004 as contract grapes, along with a few Shiraz vines for personal use. We have downsized from 8,000 to 2,000 vines and increased the number of Shiraz vines by grafting onto the Chardonnay root stock.
We understand that to make great wine, it has to start at the vineyard! By reducing the number of vines we can concentrate on low yield and high complexity flavours; spend more time with the vines, closely monitor the fruit and be selective when hand picking the best grapes. This ensures excellent quality and controlled quantity for every vintage. I often say when tasting the wine "Can you taste the blood, sweat and tears??"
We also understand the importance of barrel fermentation. We spend a lot of time sourcing the right French oak, the right spice, toast and influential flavours. We select oak from single French forests (not blends). Our wines are in new and seasoned French oak barrels for 10-12 months.
With great people working with us, we have come a long way and are very pleased to be making award winning wines!
The Winemaker
Bernie Stanlake has been interested in wine and worked in the industry since the mid 1980’s and winemaking since the late 1990’s at Credaro Estate, Fonty’s Pool, Moss Brothers, Harman’s and Rockfield. Bernie has had much success improving wine ratings and winning medals. In between winemaking at Rockfield, Bernie is also a contract winemaker for other boutique wine producers. He became our winemaker for our first vintage in 2012 and since then we have built a very strong relationship, gained a friend and watched him make a damn fine chardonnay! He’s the one to blame for my love of France…
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LICENCE: Licensee: Maree Tinker & Steve Johnstone Producers Licence: 6180150525 Premises Name: Whimwood Estate Wines Premises Address: 2581 Nannup-Balingup Road, Nannup, WA, 6275 Phone: 0417 003 235 |
WARNING: Under the Liquor Control Act 1988 it is an offence:
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