A wine region conjured by agronomy. In 1965 the scientist John Gladstones published a paper identifying this remote surfing cape in Western Australia as a climatic twin of Bordeaux — without the rain at vintage. Vasse Felix planted the first vines in 1967; Cullen and Moss Wood followed, a striking number of the founding estates started by doctors trading medicine for viticulture.
Isolation is its vineyard hygiene: the most remote wine region in the world has been spared many of the pests and diseases of older ones. It produces only around two percent of Australia's wine but a fifth of its premium tier — restrained Cabernet Sauvignon and tightly wound Chardonnay that argued, earlier than most, that Australia could do elegance.