TWO MINUTES WITH | Virginia Willcock
Virginia Willcock grew up in Perth, Western Australia, and became fascinated by wine as a teenager when her father bought a small vineyard near the city. Seeing the joy wine brought them and their friends, she decided this was the career for her. She has been chief winemaker at Vasse Felix, the first commercial vineyard planted in her home state’s Margaret River, since 2006
What’s your ‘last supper’ wine?
I know I’m not meant to pick my own wine, but it has to be a magnum of Vasse Felix’s 2013 Tom Cullity. It was the first vintage of this wine, which is named after our founder, who planted the first commercial vines in Margaret River. I was presented with a magnum on my 10th anniversary here, and it was the most poignant moment of my career. I don’t know how I earned the privilege of making such a beautiful wine from those original vines, but when you’re about to die, you want to celebrate your own life, right? And that’s my proudest moment.
Where’s your dream vineyard?
I don’t know enough about the soils anywhere else to say for certain, but I’d love to grow Nebbiolo and I don’t believe in making it in Australia, so I’d be very happy to work in the hills of Piedmont with some funky, beautiful dirt and a truffle farm next door.
Who’s your wine hero?
Can I have two? The first is Steve Pannell, who was my best mate when we were studying at Roseworthy College, and very much a big brother to me, keeping me on the straight and narrow. We love the same wines, and all his wines are about succulence, beauty and finesse – he doesn’t make anything that I don’t love. He’s just the most ‘zen’ guy in wine.
The other would be Andrew Caillard MW. He’s an Englishman who is more passionate about Australian wine than most Aussies – as seen in his amazing book, The Australian Ark. Anyone who is committed to that sort of research into a country’s wine and history deserves huge respect. He gets very angry when he hears people saying how Australia is a shallow wine nation. Plus he has a way of swearing that somehow sounds polite and considered, not offensive. Maybe that’s a British thing.
What’s the next big thing in wine?
Wines with less oak intervention and more vineyard precision. The varieties I work with most – Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay – are very oak-influenced, where the best vineyards always get the best oak. But what if grapes from the best vineyards were only aged in the most elegant vessels, allowing the purity of the site to shine through? You don’t see enough of that. That way you could get to see the beauty of the greatest vineyards of the world, rather than the winemaking.
What’s your favourite wine memory?
For my 50th birthday, my husband had covertly collected a bunch of Barolos and Barbarescos from my birth year, 1968. It was a rubbish vintage pretty much everywhere in Europe, but it was OK in Piedmont, and he got hold of some beauties. Because they were quite old and delicate, we decided we’d have them at the start of the lunch, with charcuterie and breads. I remember a Produttori del Barbaresco being the standout. Then we had a massive porchetta and some top-end white Burgundies – Ponsot and the like. It was an awesome day, and reaffirmed to me to always serve older, delicate reds before whites.
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