Join us on Sunday August 11th for
Duke’s Vineyard Winemaker Masterclass and Dinner
…and the LAUNCH of the 2024 Magpie Hill Reserve Riesling.
14 Wines Including some of Dukes’ - and WA’s -
finest ever Rieslings including:
- A Mini vertical of MH Rieslings including the 2024 New Release
- The outstanding ‘Halo Range’K2 Riesling 2022
- The New ‘Invitational Vineyard Range’ M.R. Chardonnay 2022
- The 2022 MH Shiraz & New Release Cabernet Sauvignon
- The 2022s Halo Range Whole Bunch Shiraz & First Cab
Hosted by
Ben Cane, Owner & Winemaker
Masterclass: 4-6pm, 14 Wines with nibbles, $45
Dinner: 6.30pm, 14 Wines & 5 Courses, $115
Sunday August 11th
ABOUT
DUKE’S VINEYARD
Duke’s Vineyard is an award-winning vineyard in the cool-climate. Great Southern wine region of Western Australia producing dry Rieslings, Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz.
Duke himself planted the vines in 1999, starting on his 60th birthday, and in 2019, he received 99 points and the James Halliday Wine of the Year Award for his 2017 Riesling, a first for an Australian Riesling.
The vineyard is a unique site that sits at the feet of the ancient granite Porongurup peaks with warm ripening days and cooler nights tempered with maritime breezes.
Winemaker Ben Cane and his film/media/special events producer partner, Sarah Date, took over the property and brand in April 2022 when Duke retired at 82. They are guiding the existing premium wines to exciting new heights and will also add Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Gewurztraminer to the
portfolio by way of invitational WA vineyards.
Winery Note, Dukesvineyard.com
JJ with Ben Cane, in 2022, who with his partner Sarah, are the
new owners of the Duke’s Vineyard and Wine.
Your Host - Owner & Winemaker, Ben Cane
Ben Cane is a visionary winemaker and viticulturist known for his unwavering commitment to crafting exceptional wines that showcase the unique terroir of a region. With a passion for sustainability and a deep understanding of the land, Cane has established himself as a true custodian of the vineyards he tends to. Drawing inspiration from the principles of biodynamics and organic farming, he employs meticulous vineyard management techniques to nurture the grapes and ensure their expressive potential is fully realised.
Driven by a profound respect for nature, Cane's winemaking philosophy is a harmonious blend of tradition and innovation. He believes that great wines are born from a holistic approach that encompasses both the vineyard and the cellar. By carefully selecting premium fruit and employing minimal intervention techniques in the winemaking process, he allows the inherent character of each vineyard site to shine through in his wines. Embracing the visionary approach that made Duke and his long-time wine consultant Rob Diletti revered figures in the industry, Ben will continue to push boundaries and explore new frontiers, constantly seeking ways to enhance the expression of the Porongurup terroir in his wines.
The Wine List
On Arrival
Single Vineyard Riesling 2024, Our Price $26
The generosity of the 2024 vintage gave our younger block of Riesling notes of crisp golden delicious apple, Meyer lemon curd and Thai basil, creating great longevity on the palate and in the mind.
Winery notes
Magpie Hill Riesling 2022, Our Price $42
One year down the track this is becoming round, balanced and with long balanced Riesling fruit behind the age worthy and lingering and crisp acid influenced finish and aftertaste. This is blossoming. Another one of Australia’s finest. 19 points. JJ
An exceptional Riesling from this great site. Very youthful and tightly wound, lime concentrate, lemon pith, with a chalky mineral dryness. This is about concealed power and a laser-like fresh acid line. A very difficult wine to score as the nose is notably reductive. Be patient. With decanting and/or 5-plus years in the cellar, I’m very confident the impressive core will open up to a stunning panoply of flavours.
93-96 Points, Paul Edwards, The West Australian, August 2022
This 2022 Magpie Hill Reserve Riesling is the first under new ownership, and it leads with a distinctly different nose than usual. It's challenging to pin down, but here goes in place of the pristine white flowers and talc that is expected, there is swirling ash/embers, straw/hay, bison grass and graphite/bitumen and a pronounced petrichor/ozone character leads the charge. Behind it are pencil shavings, Disprin (aspirin), the crackle of summer grass and oxalis. It's salty and mineral, Gray and rocky, austere, and sleek. Whether it's the season or not, this is a change in style for the Magpie Hill Reserve. Very different indeed.
95+ Points, Erin Larkin, Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate
The intensity of the Rieslings from this Porongurup vineyard is quite remarkable. I don’t think there is a more powerful and intense Riesling made in the State. The aroma has a spiciness that sits comfortably with the floral spicy lemon zip. Sustained and coiled tensile palate that extends to a brilliantly long finish.
97 Points, Ray Jordan, WA Wine Review 2023
The wine is tightly wound and very restrained, delicate, and tense, needing time to emerge fully. Lively acidity is neatly integrated into the wine. A long-term wine for sure, a style that needs time and will richly reward even a few years cellaring.
95 Points, Huon Hooke, The Real Review
Magpie Hill Riesling 2023, Our Price $42
Now firmly established as one of a handful of Australia's greatest rieslings. This is another beautiful wine. It's slightly friendlier than the awesome '22, but lacks nothing in intensity and drive. Fine lift of wet granite, crunchy quartz and fine lemon and spicy pear on the nose. The palate is so complex and intricately woven with passionfruit, guava, green apple skin and light talcy bath salts. Fine with a precise fine acidity extending to a relentless finish.
97 Points Ray Jordan, rayjordan.com
The 2023 Magpie Hill Reserve Riesling is so, so pretty on the nose, almost achingly so… In the mouth, the wine is concentrated and intense. The acid would almost hurt were it not for the slew of juicy, saliva-inducing salty characters in there. It is detailed, nuanced and exciting. Juicy
96 Points Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate
Intense lemon-verbena freshly rolled pastry and nettle aromas, the palate light-bodied and very tangy with prominent acidity, the fruit intense and crisp, delicate and refined, with a very long finale.
95 Points Houn Hooke, The Real Review
Acid hounds, line up! This is a brittle and tense riesling of super limey/tart lemony flavour profile, a very compact, rapier-like thrust across the palate and vividly refreshing. Skeletal and bony, it's terrifically taut and precise with excellent flavour extension. Drinking this in its vivid youth delivers a tightly wound expression; cellaring should deliver a more mellow, relaxed wine.
94 Mike Bennie, Halliday Wine Companion
Wow. A fragrant, lively, fresh mouth full of delicious and exciting
flavours – of enormous length. A touch more generosity than previously. This is a crowd pleaser. I believe that our customers will love it.
19 points. JJ
Magpie Hill Riesling 2024 New Release, Our Price $42
The 2024 vintage produced a generous juicy palate of fresh lime, orange blossom and grapefruit pith with a line of mineral salinity and mouthwatering liveliness.
Winery notes
1st Course
Invitational Frankland River Riesling 2022, Our Price $36
Light yellow colour; already accessible and more open than the Magpie Hill Reserve or Chatsfield wines. Lime and fresh-picked herbs, a marginally richer, fuller palate that is already very rewarding to drink.
95 Points Huon Hooke, The Real Review
A pure, potent and charismatic riesling of intensity and drive. Loaded with briny minerality and wound tightly with green apple and grapefruit zestiness. Opens with fruit characters married to wet fern, ozone and sea spray notes, the palate likewise apple-meets-grapefruit with flinty mineral elements. Flavours extend long and tightly packed with great concentration of fruit, spice and mineral elements. Overall, feels high quality while positing high drinkability. A winner.
94 Points Mike Bennie, Halliday Wine Companion
This is sourced from Frankland River and comes from the excellent Powderbark vineyard of Matt Swinney. It has a distinctive minerally slaty character. It’s also got power and intensity with a great palate weight and texture, and is quite spicy. Provides an alternative to the more austere and finer Porongurup wines from the home vineyard.
93 Points Ray Jordan, Winepilot
Riesling K2 2022, Our Price $77
A hyper-intense fragrant bouquet lifted dried wildflowers, lemon pith, dry straw and dried herb aromas. The wine is tremendously intense and delicate at the same moment; a wonderful mouthful of riesling, scintillating freshness and intensity delivered with harmony and great persistence. Mouth-waterting acidity and tremendous poise.
97 Points Huon Hooke, The Real Review
Now here is something special. There is more than a touch of Old World in this distinctive wine that delivers with panache. A portion was barrel fermented and extended lees contact added further texture. There’s a flinty edge here with distinctive bath salts. This was a very tough vintage, with rain after some intense heat, yet with fastidious vineyard work the result has been outstanding. It’s a Riesling with a difference and well worth checking.
96 Points Ray Jordan, winepilot
The 2022 Halo Range K2 Riesling marks the first time (to my knowledge) that there has ever been an inclusion of oak in the maturation of any Riesling at this estate. While it is evident on the nose, it comes in the form of cold buttered toast, honeysuckle, beeswax, lanolin, peach fuzz, dried lavender and a lime pickle (with mustard seed and lime rind in profusion) character. In the mouth, the flavors are as the nose has promised, punctuated by searing acidity (a pH of 2.9 and total acidity of 8.2 grams per liter) that whistles across the tongue like wind through a keyhole. It is coiled, but it has breadth and richness too. This is a good move for this tiny region, an oak-matured Riesling.
95+ Points Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate
Some of the wine is barrel fermented in matured oak; aged on lees. It's a great textural experience, a more mellow expression of Porongurup riesling, intriguing in its slippery glide of fruit, gentle yeasty savoury elements and faint floral and spice notes. It feels complex and generous but held well in its crispish outer edges of texture. Lots of Meyer lemon, candied ginger, lemongrass, red apple and grapefruit here. Very elegant, is the other message, just so in its gentle but precise nature. This is one for big glasses and contemplation.
95 Points Mike Bennie, Halliday Wine companion
Invitational Margaret River Chardonnay 2022 New Release, Our Price $55
Light-medium yellow and bright in the glass; intense grapefruit, sweet-herb and lemon-balm aromas overlaid by a nutty, peanut brittle trace from oak-maturation. The wine remains delicate, reserved and refined in the mouth, with excellent line and length. Intense, concentrated lemon/citrus fruit. An impressive young chardonnay that will certainly age superbly. A stunner.
96 Points Huon Hooke, The Real Review
This is a very fine and elegant style of Chardonnay. It’s certainly tighter than the M2 but it also has power. It’s also a departure for Dukes but not for Cane who has worked with this style before. It’s made from a number of different clones with a chalky minerality taking the palate through to a very long finish. I particularly like the crunchy slightly juicy character which brings life and energy to the palate and complements the lemon curd and brioche flavours. The 10 months in oak, of which 33% was new, is perfectly balanced with the fruit and crisp minerally acidity.
95 Points Ray Jordan, rayjordanwine.com
2nd Course
The Whole Bunch Shiraz 2021, Our Price $57
This is a result of an experiment that started in 2018. It was foot stomped, and no new oak used. It’s made with a Pinot Noir approach and as a result has a lovely Pinot like weight and perfume. It’s fresh and slightly sappy with grainy tannins and a firmish core. It’s made as a delicate and aromatic expression of Shiraz, yet it has the structure to handle extended cellaring. I have to say I like the wine a lot.
96 Points Ray Jordan, Wine Pilot
A lighter colour for a young shiraz: medium depth purple red, more like pinot than shiraz. The first sniff reveals stemmy whole-bunch ferment high notes, peppery and dried-herby. The wine is full-bodied and ripe, deep and brooding, with fine-grained tannins that supply its backbone. A surprising wine, which will no doubt build more complexity as the stemmy notes mellow. The palate is very long and refined. Don't judge it by its depth of colour! A delicious and very elegant shiraz.
95 Points, Huon Hooke, The Real Review
A fragrant, silky shiraz set just over medium bodied and layered with floral elements, clove and cinnamon spice, sweet cherry juice and touches of flinty minerality... Quite gentle in its feel, there's a calmness and beautiful flow to the wine. Pleasing drinking.
93 Points Mike Bennie, Wine companion
The 2021 The Whole Bunch Shiraz is very light in the glass and aromatic, with notes of orange peel, lavender, Campari, lantana, rose petals and blackberry bramble. In the mouth, the wine has a febrile nature—spicy, edgy, exotic. Foot stomped and matured in seasoned French oak.
92 Points Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate
The Whole Bunch Shiraz 2022, Our Price $61
Magpie Hill Shiraz 2022, Our Price $42
Our flagship Shiraz is sourced from the highest, most central point of the vineyard where the terroir of granitic sand, clay and coffee rock create a dark spice structure for the fine ripe core of dark berries and powdery tannins.
Winery notes
3rd Course
Magpie Hill Reserve Cabernet 2021, Our Price $38
There is power and intensity coursing through every part of the wine. The tannins are firm but there is a deep core of fruit to balance. It’s medium to full bodied reflecting its cool climate origins, but there is power and poise. At the moment it’s quite closed but with a little time it will certainly reveal plenty more. The finish has a slightly chalky aspirin-like character to provide focus and direction.
94 Points Ray Jordan, Wine Pilot
This has good concentration, palate-staining resonance, and a general sense of high drinkability. Sits at medium weight, cruises along gently and feels almost refreshing in a way. Elegant and understated; very good are the words.
94 Points Mike Bennie, Wine companion
The 2021 Magpie Hill Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon is from the same vineyard as the Single Vineyard Cabernet, but it is a step up in concentration of fruit and also oak. Here, there is dark chocolate and star anise to add to the core of delicate/pure black and purple fruit. This is a beautiful wine, slightly lower in alcohol than the Single Vineyard Cabernet, but more oomph and thrust of purpose. Really beautiful. Gently chewy.
94 Points Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate
Deep red-purple colour with a tobacco, humus, forest-floor bouquet which turns mellow and smoothly fleshy on the palate, with ample powdery tannins that provide some chew on the aftertaste. Cassis cabernet notes are elusive but there, buried deep. A savoury style of cabernet, ripe and good.
92 Points, Huon Hooke, The Real Review
Magpie Hill Reserve Cabernet 2022, Our Price $42
From a powerful Barossa clone (SA126), the fruit is sourced from the crest of the vineyard where soils are shallower, producing small grapes with dark forest berry concentration and refined muscular tannins. 2022 is a vintage of infinite finesse with great length and completeness to age gracefully.
Winery notes
4th Course
The First Cab 2021, Our Price $63
This is a very powerful wine with a decent hit of tannins, although they are well proportioned and balanced. It’s deep and dark with immensely robust fruit but still with a degree of fleshy red berry. Right now, it is still tightly coiled but with time it will certainly spring into action to show its best. It’s a very small production wine made from a miniscule planting of Houghton clone Cabernet.
95 Points Ray Jordan, Wine Pilot
The tannins are fine and persistent, the palate long. The depth of flavour is impressive, the structure serious and Bordeaux-like. No leafiness at all. This is classy cabernet.
95 Points, Huon Hooke, The Real Review
The First Cab 2022, Our Price $63
Arising from a tiny sub-block of Houghton clone, the soaring red floral and ripe berry notes are cradled by refined tannins and a mineral core An ode befitting the courageous pioneering spirit behind the Duke’s story.
Refined, long, densely powerful, and tightly coiled, bright red currant core, succulent and juicy, cranberry, wild raspberry, refined, crushed rose petal, silky, powdery, chalky tannins, complete with great width and persistence, saltbush, crushed Himalayan salt, poised, focused with great energy and verve
Winery notes
5th Course
Price List
Dukes Vineyard & James Halliday Awards Context:
Well, at least one wine included in each of the 2016-2021
6 James Halliday’s Top 100 articles - and 11 in total …
against the combined rest of the wine industry.
In the James Halliday Top 100 2016…
the Magpie Hill Reserve Riesling 2016
In the Top 100 2017 edition…
the Magpie Hill Reserve Riesling 2017
In the Top 100 2018 edition…
the Magpie Hill Reserve Riesling 2018
In the Top 100 2019 edition…
the Magpie Hill Reserve Riesling 2019 &
the Magpie Hill Reserve Shiraz 2018
In the Top 100 2020 edition…
the Magpie Hill Reserve Riesling 2020 98 points &
The First Cab 2019 98 points
In the Top 100 2021 edition…
The Morrisey 2018,
Magpie Hill Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2018,
Magpie Hill Reserve Riesling 2019 &
the Magpie Hill Reserve Shiraz 2018
…& in 2022
The Tiny Duke’s Vineyard had 2 Cabernet Sauvignons
amongst the top 30 varietal Cabernet Sauvignons
in the James Halliday Wine Companion 2022 - despite the
Porongurup region not being known for Cabernet
Sauvignon.
Quite extra-ordinary
Australia’s Best Rieslings in the Halliday Context:
Yellow marks the highest or equal highest pointed of these (selected) Rieslings of Vintage
Very interesting chart. The 2022 & 2023 Magpie Hill point, by the Wine Companion’s New WA Writer Mike Bennie(after the talented and effective Erin Larkin was poached by the world’s most influential wine website, Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, to cover Australia and New Zealand) are the lowest.