27/09/2024
What’s Up???
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Wine Tasting Friday
What’s Up in Margaret River
Tonight, 27th September from 5pm
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Cowaramup, Gnarabup, Wilyabrup, Yallingup...
There is a lot to look “up” to down in the south-west corner of WA.
For the Noongar people, the suffix -up means “place of”. The convention for naming places was in fact used a navigational tool by the many different groups of the Noongar as they traversed their expansive Boodja, or country. The place names serve as a descriptor of what might be found there: a particular food source, a weather warning or even drawing one’s attention to a particular geographic feature. Wagerup for example means “place of the emu”. Yallingup is the “place of holes”, or caves, as in “watch out for those holes!”
And the Noongar name for the Margaret River is Wooditchup, or “place of Wooditch”, the magic man who created the river and its surrounding caves in the Dreaming.
The river makes its way through ancient soils over a granite base, as it carves its way to the ocean. The Wadandi, or saltwater people who have known for millennia just how special this “place” is, describe the six seasons of their calendar year, based on patterns observed in the plants, the reptiles, the fish and the animals, as they live on Boodja.
For the wine world though, the understanding of these six seasons is often simplified to the Margaret River being described as Australia’s Bordeaux.
An isolating/liberating drive three hours south of Perth, the region is surprisingly cool, thanks to maritime climate influenced by both the Indian and Great Southern Oceans, and the stabilising effect of the Leeuwin Current.
The ancient soils are alive with a diverse microbiome, and whilst sandy soils create a rich and opulent Chardonnay, the well-drained, heat-retaining gravelly soils are ideal for Cabernet Sauvignon!
Come on down tonight as we drink UP to this special place with two iconic wineries, and !
