History

Witchcliffe Estate is situated on a property 170 acres in size, which, along with most of the farms in the Margaret River region, was originally cleared in the group settlement days to be a dairy farm.  In the early 1980's, becuase of an abundance of unpolluted fres water due to the surrounding national park, and the perfect climactic conditions, part of the propery was developed into "The Margaret River Marron Farm".  Marron is a freshwater crayfish native to the south west of Western Australia, and renowned throughout the world as a great delicacy.

"The Marron Farm", as it became known locally, had several incarnations until we, the Cosby family, took over in 1999.  We still have an association with marron.  Indeed, a marron was the inspiration for the design of our logo.

We now only farm marron on a small scale in order to sell it live and fresh to members of the public through the Cellar Door.

Our primary focus now is on the vineyard and the resulting Witchcliffe Estate wines.

We now operate what the Margaret River wine region became famous for, and what is becoming increasingly rare, which is a small, family owned and operated boutique winery.  Our vineyard is 22 acres in size and was planted in the early 1990's.

We waited until the vines were mature enough to be producing great fruit before we decided to develop our own label, hence 2003 was Witchcliffe Estate's first vintage. To ensure the best standard of fruit possible, we carefully manage our canopy sizes and maintain very low crop levels to increase the intensity of flavours in the grapes.

We do this by using minimal irrigation, and by careful fertilisation and pruning.

These factors, together with the microclimate of the southern part of the region and the perfect gravelly, loamy soils on which we are situated mean that we are producing some of the best fruit to be found in the region.

We are currently growing four of the flagship varieties for the Margaret River region - Chardonnay, Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Shiraz.  We have recently planted two acres of Cabernet Sauvignon to increase our production of red wine.

Please see Our Wines for details of our wine list.