MARGARET RIVER
Beginnings According to First Nations people, the Margaret River area, the Land of the Saltwater People (Wadandi Boodja), is one of the oldest places of human occupation on the Australian continent. Evidence suggests that people from the Noongar Nation were living at Devil’s Lair cave as far back as 48,000 years ago. The story of European settlement only begins in the early 19th century, and Margaret River first appeared as a place name in 1839, some 10 years after the foundation of the Swan River Colony, the nascent beginning of Western Australia. Cuttings from vines originally given to the Sydney Botanical Gardens by Gregory Blaxland and James and William Macarthur accompanied the first settlers in 1829 and were planted in a makeshift botanical garden. Over the following years, a small cottage wine industry emerged around the Perth township, which gained city status in 1859. The Swan River became an important wine-growing region after the 1860s with the influx of new settlers and wealth. The establishment of Houghton’s (1859), on the banks of the Swan River, began a more serious wine industry, which took advantage of new technologies and ambitions associated with the emergence of the British Empire and the development of the Western Australian economy. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the State’s wine industry centred on the Swan River wine region. Although the modern Margaret River wine industry was only established in 1967 with the planting of the Vasse Felix vineyard by Dr Tom Cullity, the story of Margaret River wine predates this important landmark year. The success of the region is based on colonial vinestock material that can be traced back to the early 19th century. While it is true that some of this material arrived from the Cape Colony (South Africa), notably chenin blanc, vignerons, including Charles Ferguson of Houghton’s, looked at other sources to buy grapevines. During the 1860s, economic botany to sustain communities and create wealth was a major preoccupation for colonial administrations. By this
Margaret River
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