“I only ever wanted to be a great winemaker on a level playing field,” said Virginia Wilcock on a break from vintage at Vasse Felix in the Margaret River.
That said, she was pretty chuffed to be listed in Decanter Magazine’s International Women’s Day article: Women in wine: award-winning wines by influential females, which highlighted two fo Vasse Felix’s iconic wines: the 2018 Heytesbury Chardonnay and Tom Cullity Cabernet Sauvignon-Malbec. Both wines scored gold medals and 96 points from Decanter.
Wilcock is the Chief Winemaker at Vasse Felix and has been ever since joining the winery in 2006.
When she heard from Decanter, she did not ask what they were calling about so the article came as a surprise: “I don’t ask questions during vintage. I just do,” she said.
“The Decanter points and results reflect our translation of grapes into wines and say to me that perhaps we are getting our block allocations correct,” she said.
“We are fine tuning our practices from the vineyard through to winery each vintage to improve our understanding of site and clonal characters, to assist each parcel in the winery.”
The ‘Heytesbury’ blocks are some of the best on the vineyard – unique and consistently producing intensely flavoured fruit.
While the Tom Cullity Cabernet Sauvignon-Malbec, named after the founder of Vasse Felix wines, is produced by his first plantings: the Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec vines. It is an iconic wine of the Margaret River region.
Virginia has completed 29 vintages in Margaret River and is described as a “hands off winemaker” by Decanter. Wilcock explains her style as “intuitive”, as opposed to technical. She sees the quality of the fruit, and does as little as possible to ensure the characteristics of the vineyard come through. This means minimal additives and the only added yeast is wild yeast from the vineyards themselves. Vasse Felix wines are organic.
Virginia is one of the most awarded female winemakers in Australia, and was named ‘Gourmet Traveller WINE Australian Winemaker of the Year’ in 2012 – a highlight in her career, especially because it was not a gendered award.
“I truly believe the Margaret River region could be one of the greatest in the world. We’re only at the beginning of realising the full potential of the wines. I wouldn’t want to be making wine anywhere else!” she said.
