Wine is one of life's essentials
Along with family, friends and good food. Our story is the creation of something from nothing, of crafting the whole; from growing the grapes to making our wines, tasting them with you and hearing what you love.
Our aim is to highlight the character of our Swan Valley estate grown fruit, creating wines that are fresh, vibrant and full flavoured. Each wine reflects the vintage and our vineyard.
1996
Derek and Laura buy a run down, half planted vineyard.
20 Acres
Of vines sloping down to the banks of the Swan River.
10,000
Vines to prune that very first winter, with no idea how.
25+
Vintages grown, made, aged and bottled on site.
A family passion, poured into every bottle
When we bought a run-down vineyard nearly 30 years ago, we knew very little about growing grapes or making wine. Today we produce award winning wines. Every bottle still starts here on our estate, cared for by our family from vine to bottle.
30+
Years of Craft
20
Acres Under Vine
20
Acres of Estate
Grown, made and aged here
We grow and care for the grapes as they ripen, agonising over such things as irrigation and which day to hand pick our fruit.
It is exciting to see how the wines age and develop, whether in barrel or in bottle. We now have our own bottling line, the last piece in the jigsaw, and we age everything on site.
Then finally at the Cellar Door we get to show you the fruits of our labour, taste these wines with you and help you choose which are right for you.
The story begins with Derek
Derek grew up on his family's wheat farm at Wubin, but it was while working in a wine shop in London that he discovered his true passion. It was also there that he met Laura, who was from London and had not really seen a tractor.
In 1996 Laura and Derek headed back to Western Australia. Some months later Derek's mother stumbled upon a newspaper advert for a run down vineyard, and so began Upper Reach.
You don't make the same mistake twice
"I'll never forget waking up that first morning and thinking, what have we done. Ten thousand vines to prune, and we don't know what to do."
The first huge challenge was growing grapes. Up till then our participation in the wine industry was drinking. At the end of that first growing season we started learning how to make wine, something we are still improving on today.
Over the years we have built and re-built the cellar door, the restaurant, and refurbished the cottage.
Meet the winemakers
Lauren and Derek make every Upper Reach wine, from the first pick in the vineyard to the final blend in the barrel hall.
[Space for Laura: a few lines on Lauren and Derek, what they are passionate about, and what they are proudest of in the current range.]
The story of Upper Reach
Our Timeline
There are many beginnings to our journey. Here are the moments that made Upper Reach what it is.
Rollercoaster vintage: fires, floods and pestilence
It started early and with low yields, then WA went into a six day lockdown and we had to postpone two concerts. That was overshadowed by a bush fire and smoke taint that threatened us for days.
The fire was put out by drenching rains, but they caused the Swan River to flood. Fortunately our new levy bank held back the water, saving the Tempranillo and Cabernet. Amazingly, the 2021 vintage looks great.
7 January: our 21st vintage
We picked the first grapes on Tuesday 7 January, four days earlier than we had ever picked before, thanks to warm weather and lower yields. The fruit looked fantastic, with no sun burn and no bird damage.
Quality looked wonderful, but with 30 per cent less fruit there was a lot less wine.
10 February: the floods
We are called Upper Reach because we sit on the banks of the Swan River, and did we know it when the river flooded in 2017. A cyclone in the north of WA caused unprecedented rains across the catchment.
The water came rushing down the valley and ran through the middle of our vineyard. It kept rising for a couple of days, stopping just at the base of a retaining wall. We lost the whole of our premium Shiraz crop.
1 August: a new tasting space
It was time to update the Cellar Door, and we needed the space in the winery. We redeveloped the restaurant so it was more weather proof and could be heated and cooled, brought the Cellar Door much closer, and really framed the entrance and the view.
30 March: first Tempranillo vintage
Derek wanted to have a play with the Spanish variety Tempranillo, one of the main varieties in the wines of Rioja. He thought it would work well in this region.
30 July: the birth of our Cellar Club
We invited our very best supporters to join our Cellar Club, a small and select group of VIPs. Many of those early members are still a part of Upper Reach today.
22 February: the first Twilight Concert
Summer evenings on the vineyard are so beautiful that we wanted to share them, so with some trepidation we held two Twilight Concerts. We had Sabroson, and Libby Hammer with Hip Mo Toast: the hottest salsa this side of Cuba, through to cool jazz WA style.
20 September: the Upper Reach cafe opens
Clearly we did not have enough to do, so we thought we would build a cafe. Ideally we would all sit amongst the vines and have beautiful meals brought to us, but that did not seem very practical, so we created a pavilion open to the vineyard on three sides.
Because of Laura's Spanish heritage we served a tapas platter alongside an antipasto platter and a small selection of individual meals.
10 September: building a winery
Probably one of the most stressful times of my life. It was not just the building; we had to choose and order all the winemaking equipment, which is made to order in Italy, so of course it all needed significant deposits, and we did not have planning permission yet.
It was all finished in time, just. We sealed the floor two days before our first pick.
12 February: first vintage at Upper Reach
We were so young and foolish. Here we are about to dig out our very first fermenter of Shiraz grapes. Laura would like to point out that she was new to Australia and trying to fit in.
1 July: crazy Derek and Laura buy a vineyard
What were we thinking? After travelling, Derek ended up in the UK with a job at wine merchant Oddbins. This was the olden days, before the internet, when you had to know things, and Oddbins were really hot on teaching staff about wine and where it comes from.
After a few years Derek decided he wanted to return to Australia, grow grapes and make wine. Yeah, right, thought Laura, who wouldn't. A year on, Laura from London, who had never seen a tractor, and Derek from Dalwallinu had bought a run down, half planted Chardonnay vineyard.
8 October: Derek's grandfather settles the farm
In 1927 Geoff Pearse and his brother walked all the available state land grants and chose the one that is still the Pearse family farm, west of Wubin in the Dalwallinu shire.
Imagine him carving a path through the bush on his newly acquired tractor, his wife following in the truck loaded with two young children and all their worldly possessions. It took two days to get there, and then all they had to do was find water, build a house, grow food, clear land and grow a crop.
8 August: Baskerville is subdivided and the cottage is built
Baskerville was an early land grant, and in 1924 the Barrett-Lennards subdivided the block to sell parcels of 15 to 25 acres, probably aimed at servicemen returning from the First World War. Upper Reach is on one of the larger blocks abutting the Swan River.
Our rich soil is great for growing things and these properties were often market gardens. One of the early owners built the cottage that still stands here today, a typical Californian bungalow with a central corridor, two rooms each side and an outdoor privy.
1 June: the Dalmatian arrival in the Swan Valley
Migrants flocked to the Swan Valley in three waves: after the First World War, through the 1920s, and following the Second World War. Croatian farmers were a huge part of this migration and were largely responsible for transforming the valley from traditional agricultural land into the vineyards we know today.
1 June: a voyage of discovery
Captain James Stirling left his ship in the natural harbour we now call Fremantle and explored the Swan River in a sailing dinghy, the type of boat known as a gig, which inspired The Gig wine.
They camped on the opposite riverbank to us, but explored from the river to the foothills. It was the richness of the soil, the majesty of the surrounding trees, the abrupt and red coloured banks of the river, that made the scenery around this spot as beautiful as anything. Stirling returned to found the Swan River Colony in 1829.
Noongar people of the Whadjuk tribe
The Noongar Aboriginal people of the Whadjuk tribe are the traditional landowners of the Swan Valley, and have lived in the region for over 40,000 years.
It is said that a Dreamtime serpent, the Waugal, travelled across the country carving out the Swan Valley and the Swan River, and still resides deep within the river.
