Vintage harmony

Sandalford’s wines are available all over the world, but in order to further spread its brand, the winemaker has taken the next stage in vineyard development by bringing popular music to the masses.

Aside from its long and colourful history as one of Australia’s oldest wineries, Sandalford Winery is able to boast about its leading role it has been playing in developing the country’s growing wine tourism sector.

Under the ownership of the Prendiville family, whose background is primarily as hoteliers, the company has flourished as a wine producer alongside an industry that has grown tremendously in the past 20 to 30 years.

“It’s a very unique company with a history that dates back to the time of European settlement in Western Australia,” remarks chief executive officer Grant Brinklow.

“From a wine production prospective we’re very much a Margaret River wine company, but we still retain our identity and history with the Swan Valley, particularly with a focus on wine tourism associated activities,” he adds.

While the east coast of Australia was being colonised by the British from 1788, the western coast of the country was left without a colony until 1829 when a settlement was finally established.

Sandalford’s story starts more than a decade later in 1840 when Queen Victoria granted 2,000 acres of land on the outskirts of Perth, in a region today known as the Swan Valley, to John Septimus Roe — the original surveyor general of Western Australia.

Located less than a 30 minute drive from Perth’s central business district today, Swan Valley was to become the cradle of the agricultural sector in Western Australia, with wineries playing an important role in its development.

“For the first 100 and so years, the descendants of John Septimus Roe ran the business,” remarks Brinklow.

But while Sandalford’s historical roots lie in Swan Valley, it would be in another Western Australia wine region from which the company would flourish.

“By 1970 Sandalford had also become known as a pioneer in Margaret River — a region recognised for its wines across the world today,” remarks Brinklow. “Margaret River is fast becoming to Australia, what Bordeaux is to France, or Napa is to the US.”

With the majority of Australia’s wine growing industry located on the east coast, Western Australia is fighting back, and despite the state’s six growing region’s producing just 5 per cent of Australia’s wine volume, Margaret River is in the unusual position of producing close to 35 per cent of all of Australia’s premium and super-premium production.

“Sandalford’s quite unique in the sense that we’ve got this history in the Swan Valley, but in terms of the business of producing authentic premium wines, it’s all about Margaret River,” says Brinklow.

“Swan Valley has a warm climate, but if you look at the great wine growing regions of the world they are in cool climate regions and Margaret River is exactly that, with average daytime temperatures at about 10 degrees Celsius cooler than they are in Perth.”

Live and loud

With its wines performing well on both the domestic and foreign fronts, Sandalford has been branching out into areas such as wine tourism, which has become a big focus for the company’s current owners.

“It was the Prendiville’s who recognised in the early 1990s that there was huge potential for wine tourism in Australia, even if the country’s wine drinking culture was still underdeveloped,” remarks Brinklow.

“Considering Swan Valley’s proximity to the city and the airports, the family decided to invest into developing tourism facilities to encourage people to come to the winery and learn about wine.

“Close to 200,000 people visit our tourism facility in Swan Valley every year and this tourism aspect has really helped us develop our branding,” he adds.

Along with a restaurant, the Swan Valley site also hosts functions and banqueting facilities, with plans in the pipeline for a gourmet spa resort to be developed; but in recent years the site has become primarily known for showcasing some of the pop and rock worlds’ biggest names.

“The concert side has grown over the last decade,” Brinklow remarks. “Ten years ago it was very small, consisting of one or two shows a year for 4,000 to 5,000 people, but now it is one of the best known outdoor winery concert programmes anywhere in the world.

“No other similar facility in Australia has the number of shows that we do or the capacity.”

The venue in Swan Valley has a self-composed capacity for 12,000 people and during its last concert season featured live performances by Michael Buble, Sting and Santana.

“The concerts give us the opportunity to continually put our brand in front of the general public, as there’s constant television, radio and print media attention,” notes Brinklow.

Part of the club

The success of its Swan Valley venue has introduced Sandalford to thousands of potential consumers and has led to the growth of one of the southern hemisphere’s largest wine clubs.

The company is now aiming to increase the size of its wine club from 60,000 active members to 100,000 members within next two years.
Having such a huge fan base has given the company the opportunity to focus on its own domestic customers and market itself as an iconic Western Australian brand.

“There’s a perception that Australian industry is all about export and I think it’s true that in early 2000s Australian industry placed a massive focus on developing export markets around the world,” remarks Brinklow.

“But circumstances have changed a lot, and with the Australian dollar strengthening against most currencies across the globe, the days of Australia being able to produce wine available at a very attractive retail price are long gone.”

With the focus shifting back to the continent on which its wines are produced and with big name musicians lending their support to its growing presence, Sandalford is really making its mark on Australia’s wine industry.

With the brand now more than 170 years old, Brinklow says that company plans on making a lot more noise over the next two centuries.

www.sandalford.com