“Howard Park has paved the path for multi-regional fruit sourcing,” says Burch, “so naturally we have a great understanding of where each variety grows best in those regions and will seek out that fruit to see some amazing wines made. Although our key regions are Great Southern and Margaret River, Mon Tout’s fruit sourcing expands to the entire state and looks to highlight the charm and beauty in some of the other less-well-known regions in WA like Blackwood Valley, Manjimup, Swan Valley, Pemberton and Geographe.”
“Although our key regions are Great Southern and Margaret River, Mon Tout’s fruit sourcing expands to the entire state and looks to highlight the charm and beauty in some of the other less-well-known regions in WA like Blackwood Valley, Manjimup, Swan Valley, Pemberton and Geographe.”
The Mon Tout label was started by Burch in 2012, early in his winemaking journey. “I was very much a rookie and experimenting with small parcels of wine that I found interesting,” he says. “Being completely honest, the wines were pretty shit and didn’t get the traction that I had hoped. I also made the wines with zero sulphur and every bottle was wildly different – not exactly ideal for commercial sale. Each year, I made incremental improvements, and they got better and better. In 2019, I dramatically changed the style of wines and updated the labels, and the brand went nuts.”
Burch’s family founded Howard Park in 1986 (the same year he was born) and expanding internationally to make wine in Burgundy and Australia with Pascal Marchand under the Marchand & Burch label. That 2012 vintage was Burch’s first professional one with the family business, going on to manage sales in the eastern states from a Melbourne base, while coming home for vintage each year. He has worked vintages with Marchand in Burgundy, completed an MBA and is now Director of Howard Park Wines as Trade Marketing Manager.
“Mon Tout is a great space for us to try out some far-out ideas that have been brewing away in the dark recesses of our dark minds. Stuff like hyper oxidising the juices to round mouthfeel, or placing concrete pavers in our stainless open fermenters to get an interesting mineral, textural edge to shiraz.”
Nic Bowen was also born into a prominent Western Australian winemaking family, too, though he diverted to a career in finance, albeit briefly. Winemaking studies at Curtin University followed, then a dozen years with Ed Carr making sparkling wine for Accolade, rising to senior winemaker and manager of Hardys Tintara. In 2021, he was appointed Chief Winemaker at Burch Family Wines, while also collaborating on the Mon Tout wines.
“Rich provides us with stylistic direction, blending decisions and all of the day to day running of the brand,” says Bowen. “My Job is pretty simple on a vintage by vintage basis, selecting cool parcels of fruit from around the great state of WA and moulding them into the best transmission of site with minimal inputs. At this brand’s heart is to make wines of pleasure, complexity and curiosity.”
Burch credits living in Melbourne with inspiring the direction for the Mon Tout wines. “I was able to click into the early years of the natural wine movement,” he says. “Events like Rootstock and Soulfor Wine, the opening of Morgan McGlone’s first Belles Hot Chicken and Bar Clarine in Fitzroy and others were hugely inspiring for me. …At the time, I was eating and drinking in all the different venues in Melbourne and Sydney two to three times a week. I got to a point where I realised there was a gap in the market for natural wines that were not faulty…”
That resource of well-managed family vineyards was a rare asset for a young winemaker at the time, especially one intent on making minimal intervention wines. “Put simply,” says Burch, “Mon Tout Wines are made from some of the best vineyards in Western Australia, many of which we have owned and managed for years, so we have a great understanding of their ability to grow high-quality grapes.”
And while Burch says the range varies widely, the core principles remain unchanged. “Each year, we sample and closely follow the season and find the best fruit we can to make our wines,” he says. “The underlying winemaking philosophy is making wine with natural ferments, a minimal intervention approach in the vineyard and winery, from sustainably farmed vineyards, all handpicked, handmade with minimal sulphur and filtration.”
That platform of eschewing external inputs necessitates close monitoring of the vineyards, says Bowen. “We have to look back to the vineyard to ensure we have the right fruit condition, sugar levels and right acid levels to avoid the need to intervene with any of these metrics. As we only use minimal sulphur additions, we must tailor our winemaking towards techniques that promote stability, build complexity and bring pleasure straight out of the gate.”
That philosophy sees some periods of skin contact for aromatic whites “to increase their oxidative resistance,” while extended maceration on some reds, such as grenache, helps to soften tannins and exclude the need for fining. Classic techniques of softening acidity with malolactic fermentation, and clarifying wines with long settling periods are also employed to avoid filtration and fining.
Bowen says those tools are a means to an end, realising ideas that have been simmering away. “Mon Tout is a great space for us to try out some far-out ideas that have been brewing away in the dark recesses of our dark minds. Stuff like hyper oxidising the juices to round mouthfeel, or placing concrete pavers in our stainless open fermenters to get an interesting mineral, textural edge to shiraz.”
Those techniques are ever changing from year to year, and indeed in the one season. “We taste, look and adapt to the conditions of the vintage and what is planned can often take a turn during vintage and turn into something quite beautiful in another way, and that can make this endeavour a fly by the seat of your pants affair,” says Bowen.
The theme of the wines may be experimentation, but the wines are all built with a sense of harmony, with the jagged edges often associated with experimental wine long ago dealt with in the vineyard, winery and on the blending bench. Indeed, the creative inputs add pieces to build a puzzle, and it’s one that very much starts in the vineyards.
“There are lots of people making interesting wines from across Australia and we are acutely aware of this,” says Burch. “I guess our key difference is that we own and operate the vineyards from which the fruit is sourced. This gives us 100 per cent control over quality from end to end. We also often have access to the latest clones and varieties in WA.”
Burch sees plenty of growth for his brand over the years as incremental changes in vineyard management along a more sustainable path will improve fruit quality and expression, along with new varieties or new locations for old varieties come online. “Over the last couple of years, we decided to have all our vineyards and winery compliant under the Sustainable Winegrowing Australia program. This was not done to tick another accreditation box but by a desire to be responsible actors in the environment we operate in.”
They recently bought a new vineyard in Pemberton – a region which sits south east of Margaret River. The first vintage of this acquisition has gone into the latest 2023 ‘Heydays’ Chardonnay. “This is a really exciting move and we’re proud to make a new wine from this cool little region in the Southern Forests,” says Burch.
Along with the developments in farming, Burch will likely add to their already significant arsenal of terracotta amphorae and concrete eggs with some alternative fermenting and maturing vessels. Whatever the developments are, you can be sure that Mon Tout will always walk a different line. “Howard Park is bound by degrees of tradition and custodianship,” he says. “As is common with multi-generational businesses, each new generation comes at things with a new perspective. A drive to learn from tradition that is balanced with a passion to carve your own path.”
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