Provenance project approaches final stage
Understanding what makes a wine region unique is important to both producers and consumers, particularly those regions producing iconic wines. DPIRD’s publication ‘Geology, soils and climate of WA’s wine regions’ describes the climatic and geophysical elements of all of WA’s wine regions in great detail, however it does not explore how these characteristics impact wine composition and sensory attributes.
In 2021, the research project ‘Understanding the intricacies of provenance in Western Australian wine regions’ was launched. Led by the department in partnership with Future Foods Systems CRC and Wines of WA (through the Wine Industry Export Growth Partnership), the project comprises of multiple Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon sites across Margaret River and Riesling and Shiraz sites across the Great Southern.
Each of the sites were selected based on being representative of a locale and vines consistent by clone and age where possible. Two panels of vines at each site were identified and 20 kg of fruit harvested during the 2022, 2023 and 2024 vintages. Small-lot wines were made under a standardized procedure at the department's wine laboratory in Bunbury. Chemical profiling of the wines and sensory analysis of the 2022 and 2023 has been completed with the 2024 wines expected to be finalised by February 2025.
Another data gathering activity recently completed was the soil characterisation directly under the vines at each of the sample sites. This work involved the department's soil scientists extracting an 80 cm deep sample, describing the soil types at the various horizons and measuring the respective pH’s across the profiles.
The research team is nearing the completion of a dataset of 59 vineyard sites detailing specific climate, soil type, wine chemical composition and wine sensory attributes to enable a statistical interpretation to extrapolate potential relationships.
Key outcomes of the project include:
- Understand the chemical profile of wines produced from unique geophysical and climatic locales within 2 of Western Australia’s largest producing wine regions
- Understand the sensory attributes of wines produced from unique geophysical and climatic locales within 2 of Western Australia’s largest producing wine regions
- Identify relationships between metabolome and sensory profile within region/locality and variety
- Provide WA’s wine industry with scientific rigour when communicating uniqueness across 2 of the state’s largest producing wine regions.
Results and findings will be extended via various industry events and communications in the second half of 2025.
The project is supported by the Margaret River Wine Association, Great Southern Wine Producers Association and Wine Show of WA.