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Bibendum Wine Co.
Bibendum Wine Co.

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Swinney

Precision Inc.: The 2023 Reds and ’24 Riesling
Swinney
Each year, the team behind this virtuoso label seems to find a new gear, another one per cent, another nugget of wisdom acquired from experience. Some might say that Swinney has created a rod for its own back in hitting the ground so fast. How do you keep on improving from such a high base? Others would say that success breeds success.

But success at this level doesn’t come by happenstance. Alongside Matt and Janelle Swinney and winemaker Rob Mann, WA vine guru Rhys Thomas is turning up the dial on precision viticulture. Thomas arrived at Swinney after more than 17 years as state viticulturist for Houghton, whose flagship wine is named for its legendary, long-serving winemaker, Jack Mann—Rob Mann’s grandfather. In his former role, he’d enjoyed a 15-year working relationship with Swinneys’ Frankland River fruit. So, when the opportunity to work at Swinney arose, Thomas didn’t think twice: “It took me less than five minutes to make the call.”

For Thomas and his colleagues, the devil is always in the detail. In his experienced eyes, what elevates Frankland River and the Swinney vineyard above other parts of Western Australia is the prevalence of the best kinds of viticultural soil: alluvial, ferruginous red-gum gravels. From there, every exhaustive step the team takes—right down to the multiple passes they make to pick the bunches—is precisely managed to achieve perfect balance in canopy, yield, fruit and wine. “We apply all the best viticultural practices you can think of, unconstrained by budget, to get those flavours and memories,” says Rhys, evoking Einstein’s theory that curiosity has its own reason for existing.

There’s nothing theoretical, however, about the quality of Swinney’s clutch of wines. The season was dry overall, but the vines got “the right rain at the right time”, and the relatively cool season balanced out the low yields, so the fruit came in at the usual time with great concentration and acidity. “We’ve got some really exciting wines from 2023,” says Rob Mann. “It was a great vintage.” Indeed, these new releases fit seamlessly into a body of work that explains why Swinney is crafting some of the finest wines in Australia.

The Wines

Swinney Riesling 2024

Swinney Riesling 2024

The key to understanding Swinney’s Riesling is to appreciate the farming. All blocks are organically dry-farmed, the vines are cane-pruned and the row orientation is north to south. The team uses shade cloth in the Riesling blocks to protect the bunches from excessive sun exposure and avoid any roasted character in the fruit. Such precise vineyard management goes some way to explaining the wine’s purity and transparency.

Rob Mann’s search for structure and texture reigns in the cellar. The fruit (from two of Swinney’s oldest blocks in Powderbark Vineyard) is pressed as bunches and ferments naturally in stainless steel with a high solids component. This “builds nuance and a saline core in the wine”, according to Mann. The wine then rests on lees in tank to preserve freshness and build texture before bottling.

Vintage 2024 came early. It was one of the hottest, driest years on record, so Swinney’s meticulous farming methods were more critical than ever in ensuring pristine Riesling fruit made it to Rob Mann in the cellar. Despite the atypical conditions, Mann tells us the season delivered fruit of “tremendous depth and intensity with balanced, high natural acidity”.

“It’s hard to go past intensity of fruit flavour in a young riesling, and this Swinney 2024 has plenty of it. Lemon, salt, lime leaf and wet stone characters put on a pretty dramatic – not to mention classy – display, the finish then chalky, textural and dry. There’s a tonic water aspect to this. And plenty of mouth perfume. And something of a meaty savouriness. And yet all the while the fruit feels pristine, and concentrated. It’s a cracking example of Frankland River riesling, at its best. It’s a wine of both joy, and quality.”
95 points, Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front
“Riesling with X-factor. This nails the brief. Scintillating with its core of briny, mineral-laced acidity with a vivid sense of freshness, power and concentration. Lots of mixed citrus fruit, some just-ripe pineapple, crunchy green apple, a pleasing haziness to texture lending complexity, a touch of cashew nut savouriness, a little grip and pucker in its swagger. Incredibly refreshing and delicious overall. A fine wine.”
95 points, Mike Bennie, The Wine Companion
“The 2024 Riesling is crunchy and bright, with savory phenolics on the palate that shape the fruit. Offering lemon pith and wet chalk, steely acidity and a tightly coiled shape, this is an impressive Riesling, one that pairs very well with seafood. 21.7% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.”
93 points, Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate
Swinney Riesling 2024
Swinney Syrah 2023

Swinney Syrah 2023

Swinney’s benchmark Syrah is hand-harvested from select parcels in the Wilsons Pool and Powderbark vineyards. Unlike the Grenache and Mourvèdre, the Syrah is trellised—although there are plans afoot for some single-stake Syrah. The sites are planted to various clones, including 470, Waldron and Jack Mann’s heritage mass-selection Syrah. Each clone gives a different bunch structure. Combined with the estate’s use of shade cloth to shield the fruit from the harsh afternoon rays, this helps build layers of structural complexity in the final wine. The cloth also creates soft, mottled light, lowers the temperature in the bunch zone and preserves freshness, spice and typicity (varietal and regional) in the fruit.

The berries were sorted into small wooden and stainless-steel fermenters via gravity. A well-integrated 22% bunch component was included to build structure and texture, providing a robust frame for the lustrous fruit. The 2023 spent 12 days on skins before being pressed directly to 600-litre fine-grained demi-muids (7% new) for 11 months. Purple flowers and ripe forest fruits are underlaid with black olive, hung meat and graphite. The palate is peppery, bloody and juicy, with a sense of coiled power. It maintains terrific tension with assertive, minerally tannins and plenty held in reserve.

“This excellent syrah includes the newly introduced clones 470 and 171, which contribute to a new level of complexity. It’s been made with a light winemaker’s touch and only a tiny amount of new French oak to spice things up. There is structure here diving deep into the medium bodied highly perfumed and supple fruit characters. Spices and a little of the ferrous personality adds to the complexity. Brilliant and bright with such a vibrant palate profile.”
96 points, Ray Jordan, rayjordanwine.com.au
“Deep, dark, inky and opaque in the glass. Heady aromas of mulberry, blueberry, graphite, ferrous earth, Asian spice, nutty oak and bramble. Full bodied, plush and opulent in flavour. There’s lashings of blue and dark fruits, along with sweet oak, iodine, charred meats, pepper and spice. The tannins are firm and structured and the acidity delivers a decent amount of ping and zip. Fabulous concentration and balance.”
95 points, Aaron Brasher, The Real Review
“An outstanding wine that does its 'syrah' naming well – sleek and lively, heady in perfume, deeply imbued with peppery, woody spices, dark fruited yet lithe. Tannins ripple through the wine with tension and authority, a swish of crushed rock minerality in tow. The succulence lifts the wine, finds a higher plane of refreshment factor. You add this up and it's a wine of poise and beauty, and glorious in its drinkability, too.”
94 points, Mike Bennie, The Wine Companion
“The 2023 Syrah is so typical of the season in which it was grown: vibrant, poised, detailed, fresh and tightly coiled. This is sensational, although admittedly quite closed at this early stage. A blend of clones 171 and 470, this has lashings of red berries, sweet paprika, pink peppercorns, salted licorice, blackberries and black cherries. It's a beauty, mineral and fresh. The tannins are superb. It was made with 22% whole bunches, fermented with wild yeast and spent 12 days on the skins prior to fine-grained, large-format French oak (7% new). 14% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.”
95 points, Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate
Swinney Syrah 2023
Swinney Grenache 2023

Swinney Grenache 2023

Matt Swinney’s affection for the Southern Rhône and Priorat led him to plant bush-vine Grenache on Swinney’s ironstone hilltops in the 1990s. Grenache was hardly known in the area at the time, and there were many raised eyebrows in the region when the news got out. Matt’s hunch has since proved correct, and Swinney is now setting a new standard for Australian Grenache.

The 2023 Swinney Grenache was picked by hand from the well-established, dry-grown bush vines on the Wilsons Pool vineyard’s rich gravel/loam soils. Each vine was passed over multiple times to harvest perfect fruit. The bunches were destemmed and sorted berry by berry. Fermentation occurred with 20% bunches―bolstering the structural frame to balance the intensely aromatic, flavourful fruit―in a combination of small wooden fermenters and stainless-steel tanks. The wine spent two weeks on skins before being pressed to large (3600-litre), seasoned French wood for 11 months’ maturation. Swinney’s signature combination of dense flavour core―from the dry-grown bush vines―and lucid red and blue fruit freshness is writ large over the 2023. It has spice, sinew and a very moreish close with energising freshness to its distinctly chalky tannins.

“Outstanding grenache has been the calling card of Swinney, drawing gaze to their wonderful vineyard in Frankland River and rewriting the code with their medium-bodied, perfumed and succulent styling. We see a continuity of quality with this wine, with all the rosy perfume, floral lift, quiet meatiness and exotic spice, the concentrated but silky drawl of red and black cherry fruitiness and a swish of incredibly pure, fine, elegant ribbons of fine, granular tannin. With all this, an urgency to gulp – the wine, again, a high water mark for elegant reds of Australia.”
96 points, Mike Bennie, The Wine Companion
“Very deep, bright and bold colour for grenache, with strong purple tints. Low-key aromas of earth and darker spices, the palate full-bodied and densely packed with flavour and tannin, enlivened by fresh acidity. The tannins are mouth-coating and ripe, supple and fleshy. It's a baby, and would benefit from time in the cellar.”
92 points, Huon Hooke, The Real Review
“The 2023 Grenache leads with the typical Frankland River silty tannin—quite different from the McLaren Vale tannin profile, which is finer and lighter, with more clarity. This is earthier and more powerful, yet the magical thing here is that the wine is in possession of sweet finesse and pliable shape. Its inherent earthiness does not detract from its agility in the mouth, nor does it lend the wine broad shoulders. Rather, it is mineral and fresh, powerful and long. This is an awesome wine, as usual.”
96 points, Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate
“The Swinney vineyard in Frankland River has rewritten the map for Australian grenache, pulling focus from the traditional South Australian heartland and shining a light on WA’s remote south-west. Tight and coiled at first, it unfurls gloriously in the glass to reveal dark raspberry and cranberry aromatics, a fleshy, gently gamey core of fruit and a complex weave of fine, gravelly tannins.
95 points, Nick Ryan, The Weekend Australian Magazine: The Drinks Issue
Swinney Grenache 2023
Swinney Mourvèdre 2023

Swinney Mourvèdre 2023

This is the third straight Mourvèdre bottling, and wine is basking in the spotlight. Swinney’s Mourvèdre is drawn from dry-grown bush vines on Wilsons Pool Vineyard, planted in the early 2000s on rich gravelly-loam soils. The fruit was picked by hand when flavour and tannin were perfectly ripe, then sorted berry by berry and transferred via gravity to a single stainless-steel fermenter. Bunches were bumped up a touch this year—a well-judged 30% highlighting the variety’s “distinctive ferrous qualities, fine structure and wild spice”. It spent 11 days on skins before being pressed to fine-grained large-format French oak, where it matured for 11 months.

Mann says Swinney’s Mourvèdre is the wine that most clearly expresses the site’s signature ferrous, rusty nail character. Violet, lavender, and blue/blackberries provide the lift, with salumi, pepper, and gravel tugging below. The palate is plush and bright, with a line of sweet, pure fruit and powdery tannins puffing out across the back and extending the graphite and iron mineral notes wide and long.

“Yet another remarkable Rhone variety expressed perfectly from Frankland River. The aim appears to have been to present this as true a reflection of the vineyard as possible. It’s from bush vines and then a combination of whole bunches to build structure, wild fermentation to build texture and then finishing off for 11 months on lees in older French oak. It all contributes to a beautifully expressive wine capturing the distinctive ferrous regionality and the soft supple fruit of the variety with a little dried herb and sage bush lift.”
95 points, Ray Jordan, rayjordanwine.com.au
“This is about as polished an expression of Mourvèdre as you will come by. It’s meaty, floral, dark berried, nutty and lightly infused with fragrant herbs, but as much as this it’s characterised by its firm, svelte form. It feels good in the mouth. It feels polished. It finishes with a dry, fruit-filled certainty. It has an admirable freshness as well, and for all its complexity it somehow manages a grapey quality. That’s a good thing. And this is a very good wine.”
94 points, Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front
“A very fine example of the variety – deeply flavoured, touched with floral and game meat aspects, distinctly herbal and savoury and yet imbued with pitch-black berry fruitiness. It's svelte in the palate, almost a pinosity but for the variety's somewhat gruff exterior and tendency to earthiness and dusty tannins. Beautifully balanced and epic in drinking.”
95 points, Mike Bennie, The Wine Companion
“The 2023 Mourvèdre is a masterclass in elegance: here, we have silty tannins, crushed rocks and spices, dried herbs, sumac, pomegranate and ferrous notes. This is lingering still, and I have more to write without tasting it yet again. The tannins feel smashed into the fruit, pulverized, obliterated within it, and they linger long after the wine has left the mouth. It is chewy, ashy, floral and distinct—super, what a treat. Varietal Mourvèdre can be a wonderful thing, as this is. It was produced with 30% whole bunches, fermented with wild yeast and spent 11 days on the skins prior to pressing to fine-grained, large-format French oak for 11 months of élevage. 13.7% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.”
95 points, Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate
Swinney Mourvèdre 2023

“Winemaker Rob Mann, since his return from Newton Vineyards in the Napa Valley in 2018, has ushered in a new era of success for the vineyard, with his experience, his seemingly irrepressible ability to coax perfectly ripe, ductile tannins from the vineyard and his unwavering belief that great wine is made in the vineyard.” Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate



“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 Allen



“One of Australia’s finest versions of the [Grenache] variety, born of excellent farming and a unique place.” Mike Bennie

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