Wines from Australia’s Wild West

DFW family member Mark pouring a glass of a white/red at sunset

Extraordinary Natural Wines from a Faraway Land

Australia’s Sam Vinciuillo, and the New Wine of Margaret River

This summer, try something new. Most of our wine selection comes from the ancient chateaus and old trellised vineyards of Europe.  This time around, we have something undeniably fresh to offer you.

Sam Vinciuillo is a young man proud of his work, and proud of his wines. In a small Western Australian town called Cowmarapup, he farms a single vineyard with Chenin, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Shiraz, and he does all the natural farming himself. 

He’s an uncompromising sort, and has never used pesticides, herbicides, or sulfur in any part of the winemaking. And his wine is soulful - rare combinations of vintage wine grapes, grown at the edge of non-intervention, and removed entirely from tradition.

And they are something special.

You may have never heard of Margaret River, or of a man named Vinciuillo, but when you taste these wines, they will take you places - to the volcanic soils of Mt. Etna, where Sam learned his trade, to the great green forests of Western Australia and their bouncing joeys and elder kangaroos, and finally to that silent place of joy we’ve all been after tasting something special.

Taste something new this summer; we’re right here with you.

Grower Sam Vinciullo gazes over his vines with his trusty lab

A River Named Margaret

Situated on the windswept coast of Western Australia, it would be a challenge to imagine a place better suited for growing wine grapes today than Margaret River. In a similar coastal position as both Bordeaux and our Napa Valley, Margaret River Cabernet is a classic around the world. However, the fact that the first vines were cultivated here in the 1960s by a cadre of curious physicians spells a very healthy future for the region. There are no dogmatic traditions to contend with, vineyards are planted on their own rootstock (with no need to combat the scourge of phylloxera), and though competition is fierce, it is by no means, entrenched. A man like Sam can map his own future in Margaret River.

All in this Together

It is on the famous roasted slope of the Northern Rhone’s Cote Rotie that the idea of co-fermentation came to be - winemakers there would take the meaty, spicy, decadent Syrah grown from these terraced riverside vineyards, and allow them to ferment with just a bit of the white grape, Viognier. This accomplished several things - the wines first tasted much better, had more aromatic complexity, and unusually, the dark ruby-purple was all the more brilliant. Sam has taken a cue from these masters of Syrah, and cranked it up a notch. His Red/White is 70/30 blend of Shiraz and Sauvignon - partially fermented together, this new idea in wine has seen some great successes, and this is no doubt one of them.

No Compromises

Sam’s wines are his - you would know that by simply glancing at the label, where his signature cavalierly emblazons the white space, or from his website, which is all written in the first person, or simply from his wines, which are so unlike any others. Maybe it’s because he was booted from his own label while working in Sicily, or he learned it working under fierce individualists like Frank Cornellisen, but there is no tearing Sam from his vines now. He lives among them for a reason - he is the sole pruner, he mixes the organic treatments that he siphons into his backpack sprayer himself, and he is adamant that the wines he makes are 100% grapes, nothing added, nothing taken away. He is also a talent, and we count ourselves lucky to be able to taste wines from his little vineyard. 

DFW family member Sarita enjoys a glass of Sam Vinciullo Vintage Mix