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Producer
Marri Wood Park -
Region
Margaret River
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RRP
$40
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Vintage
2024
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Variety/Varieties
Chenin blanc
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Alc./Vol.
13.5%
In the glass, a flinty mineral edge meets crunchy green apples, lemon meringue and a whiff of sea spray, with honey and warm spice waiting underneath. Drink it fridge-cold for something taut and zippy, or let it sit and warm up to watch it turn plush and waxy — genuinely a different wine either way.
Marri Wood Park sits in Yallingup, at the northern end of Margaret River and just kilometres from the coast — a 6.5-hectare single-vineyard site established in 1992 by the Wright family, who still run it today, with viticulturist Julian Wright now working alongside his daughter Natalie. The vineyard has been Demeter-certified biodynamic since 2008, farmed without chemicals or irrigation on gravelly, well-drained loam. Marri trees (Corymbia calophylla) surround the site, their blossom doing double duty by luring hungry birds away from the vines. Winemaking is handled by Nic Peterkin.
2024 delivered the earliest vintage on record — a hot, dry, compressed season that forced a rethink at harvest. Rather than picking the block in one go, the Wrights brought the fruit in across two separate lots: an early pick for tight acid and chalky texture, and a later pick for riper, rounder tropical character. The final wine is a blend of both passes, built to capture tension and generosity from the one vineyard, in the one unusual year.
Tasting note
Flint, apple, jasmine blossom, magnolia and sea spray lift out of the glass, trailing something a little more abstract underneath — salt spray breaking on rocks close to shore, with an almost match-struck edge for anyone who leans toward chardonnay. This is a wine that shifts as you move through the bottle. Poured straight from the fridge, it’s taut and chalky, all crunchy Granny Smith apple and slightly underripe apricot over a spine of pure salinity — bracing, thirst-quenching, built to wake up the palate. Let it warm through the middle of the bottle and the picture changes: orange peel, poached quince and yellow stone fruit move in, juicy and unhurried, while the texture eases into something waxy and lanolin-like, true to the variety, carrying warm notes of cinnamon and nutmeg with real generosity. That arc is the two picks talking to each other — the earlier fruit lending fresh acid and phenolic grip, the later fruit bringing the plushness and roundness of a genuinely hot, early vintage. There’s a lemon butter richness rounding out the palate, and a slightly savoury, parmesan-like trail, owing to the wine’s lees-driven vinification.
When to drink it
Sure, that flinty lemon-butter thing loves a bit of richness — enjoy it with fresh seafood just as easily as rich poultry with a hint of spice, or something fried and salty if that’s more your mood. But honestly? Do it that way, or don’t. We’re not precious about food matches here, and neither is this wine. It’s damn delicious on its own terms, anywhere, anytime — with friends, without friends, on a Tuesday for no reason at all.
Pour it with wine-nerd friends on a winter afternoon and pick apart its detail, glass by glass. Or make it a relaxed Sunday, chicken slow-roasting in the background, a token salad you’ll get to eventually, this unfurling in the glass while Nina Simone plays — or whatever you’re into. Chill it down, pour it out, and let the wine do the work.
Themes of this wine
Chenin Blanc
Chenin blanc is one of the great chameleon grapes, native to France’s Loire Valley, where it turns up as everything from bone-dry to nobly sweet, still or sparkling, often from the very same villages. Its hallmark is high natural acidity paired with a waxy, honeyed texture that develops with time in bottle, giving it real ageing potential most white varieties can’t match. In Australia it has long lived in the shadow of chardonnay and riesling, but a small, committed group of producers — concentrated particularly in Western Australia — are increasingly showing what the variety can do when farmed with care.
Margaret River
Margaret River is defined by its maritime position, a narrow strip of land between the Indian and Southern Oceans that keeps the climate mild and the diurnal range gentle compared to much of Australia’s wine country. Best known internationally for chardonnay and cabernet-based reds, the region’s ironstone gravel and loam soils and reliable sea breezes are increasingly proving their worth across a wider range of varieties. Yallingup, in the region’s north, sits closest to the coast, its vineyards feeling the ocean’s influence most directly of all.
Split-picking
Rather than harvesting a block in a single pass, some producers choose to pick the same vineyard across two or more separate lots, timed to capture different stages of ripeness. An earlier pick preserves brighter acidity, tighter structure and more textural grip, while a later pick brings deeper, riper fruit character and a softer, more generous mouthfeel. Blending the two allows a winemaker to build complexity and balance into a single wine — particularly useful in a compressed, early-ripening vintage, where a single harvest date would only ever tell half the story.
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