"Kiss the hallowed ground,” my Western Australia-born husband tells me before I depart on a solo trip to his homeland. He’s mostly joking, but there is something sacred about the pristine, prehistoric beauty of W.A. (pronounced “dubbel-yew aye” by locals), with its incomprehensibly old soils and myriad native species found nowhere else in Australia – or on Earth, for that matter.
Western Australia’s isolation earned it the disparaging nickname “Wait Awhile,” in reference to the speed at which change happens there. The state’s only big city, Perth, is a 28-hour drive across the outback to the next big city, Adelaide. Despite its seclusion (or, in part, because of it), Western Australia’s three main wine regions – Margaret River, Great Southern, and Swan Valley – have earned an international reputation for soaringly good Cabernet and Chardonnay, ethereal Riesling, and violet-laced cool-climate Shiraz and unique fortified wines, respectively.
I didn’t plan on kissing anything but the rims of many wine glasses on my most recent jaunt around W.A., where I too once lived. But I couldn’t wait to be back on hallowed ground.
Swan Valley
Just 15 miles northeast of central Perth’s glittering skyscrapers lies Swan Valley, the second-oldest wine region in Australia and a treasure trove of century-old vines and historic fortified wines. The valley is significant to the Indigenous Whadjuk Noongar people, who believed the Swan River was carved by a giant rainbow serpent named Waugal. In 1829, the Swan Valley was colonised by the English, who removed both the Whadjuk Noongar people from their land and the nutrient-rich native yams on which they survived. Waves of immigrants, mostly Croatians, arrived in the following decades, shaping the region into the food and wine hub it is today.
“This river has changed dramatically since the European invasion,” says Dale Tilbrook, a Wardandi Bibbulmun woman whose traditional Aboriginal country is in Margaret River, but who has resided in Swan Valley since 1998. Tilbrook is an expert in “bush tucker” (native Australian foods), and she’s tasting me through a small selection of Australia’s 6,500 edible plants. We sip lemon myrtle tea, nibble on salt bush, and pop pink balls of finger-lime pulp in our mouths. It’s a sensory explosion of savory, earthy, citrusy flavors both unfamiliar and deeply comforting.
We’re on the porch of the original 1840 homestead of one of the colonists responsible for stealing the Whadjuk people’s land, John Septimus Roe. Today it belongs to one of Swan Valley’s largest wine estates, Mandoon. In addition to a fine-dining restaurant, brewery, and hotel, the winery collaborates with Tilbrook, who operates her bush tucker experiences from Roe’s homestead, which has been transformed into an Aboriginal-operated art gallery and gift shop called Maalinup Aboriginal Gallery.
Mandoon exemplifies the changing energy in Swan Valley. The hot, dry inland region known mainly for fortified wines – as well as Chenin Blanc, Verdelho, Grenache, and Shiraz – felt somewhat dusty during the 2010s, when I lived in W.A. Tourists still flocked, but the demographic skewed older and the region seemed to undersell its unique history.
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