Swinney

For over a century, the Swinney family has been synonymous with Frankland River (Great Southern), their story intertwined with the land itself. In 1922, pioneer George John Alexander Swinney settled a vast grazing property, a legacy now taken up by fourth-generation siblings Matt and Janelle.

 Bush vines litter the property. Riesling, Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre are finding a very happy home on the ironstone slopes above the Frankland River.

From meticulously dry-farmed parcels yielding a mere five tonnes per hectare the Swinneys produce very limited volumes of their own wine, cherry-picking a tiny percentage of their parcels for their own label. Mostly dry-farmed, these parcels are low-cropped (around five tonnes per hectare), and the canopy management is meticulous. There’s shoot and bunch thinning and shade cloth for the Shiraz and Riesling fruit (creating soft, dappled light and lower temperatures in the bunch zone). In the case of Grenache—which is grown as bush vines—each plant is harvested three times to pick only perfectly ripe fruit. Even then, the fruit is further graded to ensure that only perfect berries are selected. It’s an obsessive style of viticulture that draws parallels with the great wine growers of Europe, and this shines through in the wines.

The winemaking philosophy is equally precise yet straightforward. Sixth generation Winemaker Rob Mann wants to preserve the personality of each parcel in each season, to remind people of the place rather than the maker. After careful sorting, fermentations are natural. Gravity flow is utilised to avoid pumping, maximising the percentage of whole berries and minimising maceration. Mann looks for an infusion-style, gentle extraction, and this approach goes a long way to explaining the remarkable balance and purity of the wines. Accordingly, very little new oak is used across the range.

This is not just wine. This is a love letter to land and legacy.

Swinney in The Media:

“The scale of the vineyard, coupled with their pinpoint focus and pursuit of innovation, and the quality of the resulting wines, is truly extraordinary and inspiring”
- Young Gun of Wine, Inaugural Australian Vineyard of The Year 2020

“There is a very bright future for Matt [Swinney] and Rob [Mann], and I have a feeling that these wines will gain a cult following in the UK just as they have in Australia, where many of these wines are sold on allocation only.”
- Matthew Jukes

“Swinney is the complete package.”
- Max Allan

“Swinney is flying.”
- Campbell Mattinson

"There is no question that this vineyard and the style being crafted under one of Australia’s finest winemakers, Rob Mann, have redefined syrah and grenache. These are now the established benchmarks and should be on the buy-now list for anyone with an interest in contemporary Australian wine."
- Ray Jordan

“Validation is faith’s greatest reward, and right now Matt Swinney is up to his eyeballs in it.”
- Nick Ryan, The Australian