“We actually bought the vineyard through an ad on Facebook Marketplace, and it was in a fairly rough state,” says Kaloorup Cottage co-owner Georgina Harrison. “It included an old settlement-era cottage that was slowly sinking into the ground and had a reputation as a notorious bush-doof site – and not in a good way. On the first sunny weekend after we settled, friends and family gathered for a massive clean-up. We ordered the biggest skip available and filled it within hours. That first year involved around twenty-four tip runs – and we still uncover some odd party-treasures today.” She adds, “The old cottage was completely unliveable, and we were keen to demolish it. However, my father-in-law – while undergoing chemotherapy – quietly began restoring parts of it to show us what it could become. His persistence paid off. We spent the next eighteen months restoring the house while living in a tent in the shed. Today, it has become the centrepiece of our brand and the heart of the property.”
Although the property transaction was facilitated by Facebook Marketplace, it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision: “We have been fortunate to taste wines from previous vintages, prior to taking on this property,” Harrison says of her decision to purchase the property with her husband, Tom. “At the time, those wines showed clear potential.” She adds, “Kaloorup Cottage sits comfortably within the broader Margaret River region, but it also has a very distinct personality. The site has a quiet, grounded feel to it – one that lends itself to thoughtful, low-intervention management, rather than highly engineered outcomes.” As with the cottage that is at the core of the brand, the focus here is on remediation and restoration – bringing the vineyard both back to life and into the twenty-first century by grafting half of its vines – formerly solely cabernet sauvignon – over to chardonnay, . “From the outset, the focus has been on restoring balance – biologically, environmentally and socially,” she says. “Rather than pushing the vineyard to maximise short-term output, our management prioritises long-term vine health, soil life and resilience … these practices have allowed the site to express itself more fully, and that has translated directly into what we see and feel in the glass.”
It hasn’t always been smooth sailing. “In an attempt to tick the ‘regenerative’ box – and naïvely thinking it would be cheaper than buying machinery – we got sheep,” Harrison says. “I was convinced we needed a small, well-suited breed, but my husband has never met a bargain he could refuse. When his uncle offered us some lovely Dorpers for free, we eagerly accepted. We quickly learned that Dorpers are exceptional escape artists. Within the first week, they had toured most of the surrounding area!” She adds, “After abandoning the idea of year-round cell grazing with that particular flock, the sheep ended up serving a different purpose – on our plates. Although disappointed, we had already invested heavily in grazing infrastructure, so we decided to try again with the right breed. Enter the Babydolls. They’re quiet, obedient, and – thankfully – far less adventurous. On the one and only occasion they managed to escape, due to a gate accidentally being left open, I simply led them home with a bucket of biscuits!”
While the flock of Dorpers may have been a misadventure, Kaloorup Cottage has had plenty of luck and serendipity on its side, too. “My first real breakthrough wasn’t intentional,” Harrison says. “In our first year, we simply didn’t have a spray rig, and I had no desire to spray two hectares of vines with a backpack sprayer – particularly using anything non-edible, without the protection of a tractor cab. Morally, I was already heading in this direction, but necessity forced the issue. That year, I managed just four sprays and didn’t use sulphur or copper at all. We had some powdery mildew appear in a few spots – nothing major – and I took the opportunity to experiment with alternatives such as milk, lactoferrin protein, vinegar, oils and beneficial bacteria. Some treatments worked better than others, but importantly, the disease never spread beyond around fifteen vines.” She adds, “That was a real ‘a-ha!’ moment for me. I realised I didn’t have to follow the rulebook exactly – I just needed to understand products and timing. Each year since, we’ve refined the approach, adjusting and improving. One day, I’m confident we’ll get it right without needing to drop any fruit!”
Harrison’s particular viticultural approach – a thoughtful combination of experimentation and intuition – has seen her develop innovations that show promise as techniques for other vineyards. “I have never wanted to do anything by the book, and I’m constantly trying to push the boundaries of innovation in the vineyard,” she says. An early experiment with bands of copper netting to stop snails from accessing vine foliage proved such a success that it was recognised by the John Tate Memorial Innovation Award at the 2023 Margaret River Wine Show – even though Harrison has since largely moved on to managing snails by encouraging carnivorous beetle populations to eat their eggs instead. She has experimented with a number of different foliar sprays – lactoferrin, CropBioLife, lupin extract, cinnamon oil, Polyoxin D zinc salt, and microbes such as Bacillus amyloliquefaciens – in order to control powdery mildew without having to resort to copper or sulphur, which would be harmful for soil health. She has started cultivating pigface plants underneath vines in an attempt to grow what she calls ‘living mulch’. And she has likewise started to interplant trees and shrubs throughout the vineyard – placing chestnuts and walnuts amongst especially vigorous cabernet vines to slow their growth, planting wattles and tagasate to fix nitrogen in poorer soils, and growing aromatic plants to alongside the vines to enhance the varietal expression of their fruit such as Geraldton wax amongst the chardonnay and mulberries and roses amongst the nebbiolo.
Perhaps most impressively, Harrison’s viticultural practices are an open book. “Ultimately, what makes this site special is that it functions not just as a vineyard, but as a place for learning, experimentation and shared experience,” she says. “It’s a site that invites curiosity, conversation and connection – between people, the land and the wines that come from it.” As such, she publishes detailed information about their regenerative approach on the Kaloorup Cottage website, up to and including detailed notes about each vintage’s foliar sprays. That amount of information transparency may seem like overkill – but it comes from an admirable philosophical conviction. “Although we work on a relatively small scale, everything we implement needs to be able to translate to larger operations,” Harrison says. “I want the vineyard to function as a working example of what is possible, so that other growers can take ideas and apply them within their own systems.”
Harrison credits her previous viticultural mentors – including Colin Bell and Jim Campbell-Clause of AHA Viticulture, Jaden McLean of Swings & Roundabouts, and Ianto Ward of Juniper Estate – for this share-and-share-alike approach. “I’ve been very fortunate to work for and alongside exceptional viticulturists throughout my career,” she says. “Each had their own approach, niche skills and techniques. Being exposed to such a range of perspectives has allowed me to absorb a great deal of knowledge and refine a style that feels authentic to me.” She also credits the team at AHA Viticulture – Graham Pether, Paul O’Reilly, Evan Grey, Pete Schiller, and Mike Gray – for showing her the ropes in the vineyard. “When I first started working at AHA I had absolutely no practical knowledge of vines, nor had I even driven a tractor before,” she says. “I wouldn’t be here without that initial guidance I received from the team.” While there are plenty of challenges left to face, Harrison is very content to be tackling them at Kaloorup Cottage: “It just feels healthy and smells clean here,” she says. “I love not smelling like sulphur or needing to wear hazchem gear! Plus, I get the joys of trying out all the ideas I’ve had fermenting in my mind for the last decade.”
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