the property. The previous owner had put together several soldier settlement blocks to form 1150 acres (465.4 hectares) of glorious farmland. The plan was to continue as a grazing property. There was never any intention to plant vineyards. Today, the property totals 668 hectares with 153.5 hectares under vine including recent plantings. Margaret River Vignerons A chance meeting, however, with Californian vigneron Robert Mondavi changed everything. In 1972 Denis Horgan received a telephone call from his solicitor announcing that an American attorney from Seattle was in town with a visiting winemaker. ‘They are interested in your property’, he said. ‘Are you going to sell?’ Denis Horgan invited them around for a drink out of interest, rather than with any intent to sell. In the meantime, learning of Robert Mondavi’s reputation, he purchased some of ‘the most expensive wines in town because they must be good’. At that fateful meeting the Horgans discovered that Robert Mondavi was consulting to an American syndicate looking for suitable land to grow ‘really high- quality wine in the alternative hemisphere.’ The syndicate had read the reports by Dr John Gladstones and Professor Olmo. According to Denis Horgan, Mondavi had visited his Margaret River farm three times over three years, unbeknown to him! This was quite a shock because in 1972 the roads around Margaret River were poor, farm properties were difficult to access and the region was not yet known for wine, with only a few vineyards planted. The American syndicate was initially involved in helping finance vineyard plantings at the Horgan’s farm in 1973, but its involvement soon evaporated. Robert Mondavi, however, became a friend of the family and helped them work out a plan to develop a wine business. Denis Horgan said, ‘Chartered accountants are always taught that you must have a mission statement, and with Robert’s help we came up with one: to produce wines that rank with the best in the world through the pursuit of excellence’. Recollections of shaping ‘a beer-drinking surfie’s mission, a darling wife, four kids and a fair bit of blank space’ into a common purpose seem remarkably naive, but the Horgans were well capitalised and well researched. All that was needed was to ‘put the pieces in place’. Among the priorities was actually knowing what great wine was and establishing the newly named Leeuwin Estate.
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The Vintage Journal – Great Estates Series
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