Will Berliner Will Berliner, who is married to Australian nurse Alison Jobson, settled in Western Australia during the early 2000s to live closer to his wife’s family. They soon purchased a 100-hectare virgin block of land without much ambition, except to: belong to a place with large parts of nature intact, where elemental forces and ocean, wind, rock and tree still had a presence. The original intent was to build a house on the land, near Caves Road, which ribbons in a south–north direction parallel to the Indian Ocean a few kilometres away. There were initial plans to grow a stand of avocado trees to block out car headlights, but a local agronomist encouraged Berliner to plant wine grapes. The first advice was to plant a large vineyard with rows nearly 300 metres long. But for this to occur, the property would have to be landscaped and the natural flow of the land altered to optimise plantings and improve drainage. The paradox of destroying nature and then introducing sustainable practices bothered Will Berliner. Although the science and economics were sound, the advice went against many principles of conservation and ecology. But the idea of planting a vineyard became a personal obsession. Berliner had a long history in the organic space, having run an organic restaurant back in the seventies, grown his own organic food for decades, and studied plants and herbal medicine. It comes as no surprise that the brief was to manage the land and vineyards organically from day one, while taking some inspiration from biodynamics, bringing to bear long day-to-day experience with organic production. Berliner, at this time, knew very little about wine and enrolled in a long-distance course in viticulture and oenology at University of California, Davis. He also purchased Cabernet and Chardonnay wines from around the world to understand the reference he would be working with. The list is a yawn of classics from Bordeaux and Burgundy, which can only be obtained by the resourceful and the connected. But of course, understanding the fine wine aesthetic is the foundation of a traditional wine education. In addition, the Margaret River region is particularly well known for its dynamic and creative wine community. Many vineyards are managed using sustainable principles , a frame of reference that is
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The Vintage Journal – Great Estate Series
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