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Cape Mentelle Vineyards

Cape Mentelle Vineyards (commonly referred to as Cape Mentelle) is a wine estate located in the Margaret River region, 274km south-west of Perth, Western Australia. The winery was founded by David Hohner, a third-generation farmer who studied wine making and viticulture in California in the 1960s and his brothers Mark and Giles (Halliday, 2007). Cape Mentelle is one of the ‘founding five’ wineries in Margaret River and is well known for producing Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay in the region (Halliday, 2007). The winery was established in 1970 and came to prominence by winning the Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy in both 1983 and 1984 for their Cabernet sauvignon (Halliday, 2007).

The Cape Mentelle cellar door is open for tasting every day from 10am to 5pm and is located at 331 Wallcliffe Rd, Margaret River WA 6285 (Sweeney, 2020). During the summer, the garden at Cape Mentelle becomes an outdoor cinema, offering both old and new films (Sweeney, 2020). Local wine and food are made available with summer months being December through to March (Sweeney, 2020).

History

The Margaret River wine region was first proposed by Agronomist Dr John Gladstone, who suggested season similarities to that of Bordeaux (Gardiner et al., 2020). David capitalised on this discovery to start one of the ‘founding five’ wineries in the region. (Gardiner et al., 2020).

The winery is situated right next to oceanic Cape Mentelle, named by the ‘Baudin expedition’ which sailed the coastline of Western Australia in 1801 (Alonso & Northcote, 2009). The Cape was discovered and then named after French cartographer Francois-Simon Mentelle, who lived in Paris in the early 18th century (Alonso & Northcote, 2009).

The winery was established and then named after Cape Mentelle by David Hohnen and his brothers Mark and Giles, planting the first vines in 1970(Alonso & Northcote, 2009). The brothers planted the vines in 16 hectares, now known as the Wallcliffe Vineyard, renowned for producing their classic Cabernet (Alonso & Northcote, 2009).

David, Mark and Giles experimented in a rammed earth shed for six years until producing their first vintage of Cabernet sauvignon in 1976 (Halliday, 2019). The brothers worked with Tom Cullity, the founder of the first Margaret River winery Vasse Felix in 1967 to help produce their award-winning Cabernets of 1983 and 1984 (Halliday, 2019).

In 1983 and 1984, Cape Mentelle won the Jimmy Watson Memorial Award for the best one-year old dry red wine, cementing their position as a primary wine maker in Australia (Halliday, 2019).

In 1990, Veuve Clicquot acquired 50 percent of the Cape Mentelle Vineyard, and then in 2000 took 100 percent ownership of the vineyard (Jordan & Ray, 2002). In 2002 the present owners, LVMH group bought Veuve Clicquot and with it the Cape Mentelle Vineyards (Jordan & Ray, 2002).

In 2010, Cape Mentelle was the first winery in the Margaret River to attain the Entwine accreditation (total sustainable winegrowing Australia). This requires the winery to report annually and continue to minimise their impact on the surrounding environment (Ball & Stolle, 2019).

In 2020, Cape Mentelle had their 50-year anniversary and celebrated it by having Ocean Photographer Eugene Tan (Aquabumps) take photos of the Cape and vineyard to document the Margaret River’s 50th year as a wine region. The photos were displayed at the North Bondi Surf Lifesaving Club (Sweeney, 2019).

Climate and Geography

The Margaret River is positioned in the South West of Western Australia, 277 kilometres south of Perth. The river itself is located 9 kilometres inland from the Indian Ocean, with the area having an annual average rainfall of 1,130 millimetres. In the summer months the average day temperature is 26°C, whilst in the winter months the average day temperature is 17°C

This Mediterranean style climate, lacking extreme summer and winter temperatures, provides an ideal temperate climate for producing wine with minimal risk of flooding or frost (Gardiner et al., 2020). With available water from Margaret River and

adequate exposure to sunlight this area is able to produce great Cabernet and Chardonnay wines (Gardiner et al., 2020).

The Margaret River region has undulating ironstone gravel soils, with Eucalyptus callophylla growing, which Gladstone indicated would yield prime vineyard soils (Gardiner et al., 2020). The climate of the region suggests season parallels to Bordeaux, instructing the first houses to plant and produce classic cabernet and merlot wines (Gardiner et al., 2020). This is what lead David and his brothers to plant and produce their award-winning Cabernet back in 1983 and 1984.

Wine Varietals and events

-       Cabernet Sauvignon: The first wine variety produced by Cape Mentelle in the 1970s, released for public consumption in 1976. The 1983 and 1984 Cabernet vintages winning the Jimmy Watson Award for best one-year old red wine.

-       Shiraz

-       Cabernet Merlot

-       Shiraz Cabernet

-       Zinfandel

-       Grenache

-       Cabernet Merlot, Cabernet Franc

-       Cabernet franc

-       Semillon

-       Sauvignon Blanc Semillon

-       Rosé

Cape Mentelle is open for tasting every day from 10am to 5pm. The cellar door is located at 331 Wallcliffe Road, 4 kilometres south of Margaret River town centre. The Winery offers private tours and tastings for customers to better understand the wine making process (Jane., 2011). During summer, the garden at Cape Mentelle becomes an outdoor cinema, offering both old and new films. Local wine and food are made available (Jane., 2011).

Practicing citations

Sentence 1: The ‘Wine Atlas of Australia’ is written by James Halliday. Halliday is an Australian senior wine critic, winemaker and writer who has co-authored more than 40 books on wine.

Sentence 2: The ‘Impact of cellar door: maximising customer relationships’ column was published as a part of the Wine and Viticulture Journal written in 2019.

Sentence 3: This column written December 2019 is being used for my article as it is a recent article that explains the history of the Cape Mentelle.

Sentence 4: Gourmet Traveller Wine is an Australian independent drinks journal that writes articles on wineries, breweries and distilleries all over Australia.

Answers to Module 7 Questions

- My media is an overview of the Cape Mentelle Wallcliffe vineyard from a birds eye view, illustrating the different sections of the vineyard and the grapes grown in each section.

- It is my own work, I drew the piece of media myself

- File format = jpeg

- License = commons agreement

- Category/gallery: Margaret River wine region

- Description of file: My media is an overview of the Cape Mentelle Wallcliffe vineyard from a birds eye view, illustrating the different sections of the vineyard and the grapes grown in each section.

- URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wallcliffe_vineyard_Cape_Mentelle_layout.pdf