From a tiny 2 acres Redgate beach area at the very south end of Margaret River,
Rob Mann, the grandson of WA Greatest wine influence ever, Jack Mann,
is rewriting the states already extraordinary wine style and history.
-John Jens
“Rob Mann is one of Australia’s best winemakers.”
Jeremy Oliver, olivers-wines.com
"The Mann family are winemaking royalty in Western Australia."
Huon Hooke, The Real Review
Rob Mann is from a famous winemaking dynasty and grandson of one of Australia's
most revered winemakers ever.
Jancis Robinson
During Rob’s 10 years at Cape Mentelle, the winery was twice awarded -
Producer of the Year, and Rob Mann Winemaker of the Year.
Taste through 8 Corymbia Wines Including the New 2023 Releases
Hosted by The Winemaking Royalty Family - Rob & Genevieve Mann
Masterclass: 4-6pm, 8 Wines with Nibbles, $50
Dinner: 6.30pm, 8 Wines & 5 Courses, $95
Sunday September 15th
The Wine List & Menu
1st Course
Rocket’s Vineyard Chenin Blanc 2021, Our Price $33
Delicate, as usual, with a flood of green apple, white flowers, Turkish apricots, cheesecloth and beeswax. This has Australian bush, and wide open summer air, and saltbush, too. The phenolics have a bitter little kick in them through the finish ... but that's ok, I was waiting for it. The waxy, lanolin character is exactly en pointe for the variety.
95 Points Erin Larkin, Halliday Wine Companion (February 2022)
Rocket’s Vineyard Chenin Blanc 2023, Our Price $33
It's driven by pear, brine, white pepper and apple flavours, though there's an aspect of cooling herbs as well. This is a tasty little number, and a sophisticated one. It pushes salt, brine and mineral notes into pure, pulpy fruit, the net effect both moreish and wonderfully food friendly. This is chenin blanc in ultra-fine form.
95 Points Campbell Mattinson, Halliday Wine Companion (February 2024)
Broad bean and pea bruchetta, Parmesan
2nd Course
Rocket’s Vineyard Tempranillo/Malbec 2021, Our Price $39
Cherry, plum, a pleasing whiff of bitumen, anise and spice, slight dried flower thing, maybe. It’s medium-bodied, but dense and rich, also very ‘mineral’ feeling with a beautiful spread of cocoa powder tannin, ample fruit, but tastes quite savoury, almost pencilly sort of thing. Acidity is cool and clean, and the finish is long, again those wonderful ferrous tannins trailing.
Gee, I really like this.
96 Points Gary Walsh, The Wine Front (July 2022)
Rocket’s Vineyard Tempranillo/Malbec 2023, Our Price $42
Beautiful, just beautiful. A blend from a vineyard Rob Mann helped plant with his father former Test cricketer Tony Mann. As you might imagine with these two varieties there is no shortage of fruit. Loaded with ripe plush and generous red fruits from the initial engaging aromas through to the soft and supple palate. Has a brightness and energy that is the hallmark of Mann’s winemaking approach.
94 Points Ray Jordan, rayjordanwine.com
Pancetta wrapped scallops, kaffir lime
3rd Course
Calgardup Vineyard Cabernet Franc 2023, Our Price $54
This is the first time I have seen a Cabernet Franc from the Corymbia stable, and I'm glad it's from a season like 2023. Mild, long and fine, 2023 was a pleasure to behold. It never got too hot, there wasn't a lot of rain and it wasn't too cold either; it just had that Goldilocks edge to it. It has all the makings of a vintage I was going to get very excited about. So here, this 2023 Cabernet Franc leads with dried flowers and black tea, licorice bullets and bay leaf, with the classic Margaret River nori/sun-dried kelp notes. It has gentle ashy overtones, a character I often perceive in their Cabernet and one that I like very much in the hands of this producer. On the palate, the wine is supple but concentrated, with brilliant tannic flow and heft. It is chewy, fragrant and fine and speaks of the earth more than its élevage. A ripping wine. It's so good!
94 Points Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate (June 2024)
Gnocchi, mushroom, chevre
4th Course
Calgardup Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2021, Our Price $65
It’s a graceful style of Cabernet, fine boned and fresh. Blackberry, strawberry, redcurrant, potpourri, slight smoky bacon bone character, and a sea spray/brine kind of thing. Tannin is tight with an emery board texture, subtle tobacco/leafy perfume, and a cool red fruited finish of excellent length, those high quality tannins really stretching it out. Subtle. Lovely.
95 Points Gary Walsh, The Wine Front (July 2022)
Calgardup Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2023, Our Price $63
The colour is so bright and brilliant. Thoroughly beautiful fragrances of plum and violet with a cherry, black olive and leafy nuance that is tremendously intriguing. The palate is quite firm with a thread of chalky tannins and balanced oak working with the fruit, which at the moment is quite shy. Has the structure and deep intensity to handle cellaring.
94 Points Ray Jordan, rayjordanwine.com
Green peppercorn encrusted sirloin, white bean romesco, leafy greens
5th Course
Pedro Ximenez, N/A
Ginger cake, banana custard
About Rob & Genevieve Mann’s Wines…
“This is young and has an incredibly long future ahead of it. Beautifully balanced, precise and poised”
The Real Review, Nick Butler
A very attractive and convincingly concentrated… Impressive poise and depth."
James Suckling
“This is almost a unique Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon as it is lighter and more elegant than most, but with fine, lingering, seamless, wonderfully texturing tannin and a
beautifully crafted finish and aftertaste.”
John Jens
“Acidity is cool and clean, and the finish is long…Gee, I really like this. “
The Wine Front, Gary Walsh
“This is chenin blanc in ultra-fine form.”
Halliday Wine Companion, Campbell Mattinson
"The wines under the Corymbia label have been outstanding."
Gourmet Traveller Wine
“The wines under the Corymbia label have been outstanding.”
Gourmet Traveller Wine
"This wine has been tasted blind a number of times recently, and it is fascinating each time.”
Halliday Wine Companion, Erin Larkin
"It’s a graceful style of Cabernet, fine boned and fresh…excellent length…Subtle. Lovely."
The Wine Front, Gary Walsh
There is a harmony and peace in this wine that remains through each of the vintages. Modern and a little bit thrilling."
Robert Parker
An exceptionally elegant, powder-fine cabernet, part of the new Margaret River breed. A massive, resounding, YES."
Halliday Wine Companion, Erin Larkin
“A very fragrant, franc-like cabernet”
The Real Review, Huon Hooke
“A wine of great finesse.”
Halliday Wine Companion, Jane Faulkner
Mann Family Context:
The Mann name is somewhat of a significant one in Australian wine circles. In fact, it’s about as a storied a moniker as there is, up there with Schubert and O’Shea. Jack Mann’s most famous creation, the game-changing Houghton’s White Burgundy was an enduring classic, which he made for 51 consecutive vintages. And while that wine become a reliably good and economical bottlings, rather than an aspirational one, its origins are significant. In an era dominated by fortified wines, that first Swan Valley chenin blanc (skin-contact for a day or so, too) topped the open class at Royal Melbourne in 1937, thus changing the wine landscape in this country for good.
Fast forward, and Mann’s grandson Rob is the sixth generation in the family to make wine for a living. Rob’s wife, Genevieve doesn’t quite have the same ancestral connection to wine, but she’s equally focused on pushing that family name into ever-higher orbits: “Wine is in our blood. We’re husband and wife, the heads and hearts of Corymbia, and part of one of the oldest winemaking families in Australia.”
The Swan Valley has considerably less cachet than Margaret River, or Pemberton, or Great Southern… It is in fact somewhat ignored outside of Western Australia, and at times shunned within. But it is Australia’s second oldest wine region, next to the Hunter Valley, and the heart of Western Australian wine history. It is also, according to the Manns, a resource of unfairly neglected potential.
Rob & Genevieve Mann…
Both Genevieve and Rob are winemakers of significant stature, with Rob previously heading winemaking for Tintara, Cape Mentelle and Newton in the Napa, while Genevieve worked in South Africa (where she was born), France and California, and was appointed winemaker at Howard Park in 2007. Corymbia was founded in 2013, based initially around the principle of echoing the Swan Valley styles of old, classic medium-bodied red wines built for enjoyment. It was inevitable that a chenin blanc followed a few years later.
The fruit source is the Mann family vineyard, planted in the ’80s, which is tended today using organic principles. The Mann’s wines are “very traditional, using techniques such as hand harvesting, gravity, oak fermentation, indigenous yeast and natural malolactic fermentation.” They are both an homage to the past and a statement for the future.
Young Gun of Wine Top 50 Winemakers, 2019
Corymbia in Context
"Corymbia is one of the most exciting wine projects to emerge from Western Australia in a decade. The combination of a distinguished winemaking family, the reinvention of a much-maligned wine region, the unlocking of the potential of a mature vineyard and a general sense of creativity, have all contributed to a strong currency.
Gourmet Traveller Wine, Mike Bennie
Corymbia is the husband-and-wife team Rob and Genevieve Mann, bringing together historic pedigree, rigorous scholarship, and a creative approach to make some of the best wine in Western Australia.
The Mann family’s winemaking history in the Western Australian wine industry dates back to 1906 with several generations of the family fulfilling significant industry stewardship positions, most notably within the Houghton Wine Company where Rob’s grandfather Jack completed 51 consecutive vintages as winemaker. In fact, it’s Jack’s observation, that the red gum tree (Corymbia calophylla) is a harbinger of excellent soils for growing grapes, that gives Corymbia its name.
Rob and Gen are both qualified wine makers and have between them 40 vintages of winemaking experience in senior roles, both within Australia and abroad. Rob has held the role of senior winemaker at Hardy’s Tintara, Cape Mentelle and most recently at LVMH’s Newton Vineyard in the Napa Valley and has also spent time working in Italy as well as consulting to a number of other wine companies. Gen has worked in senior winemaker positions at Hardy’s Tintara and Howard Park and has spent time working in France, California and South Africa.
The two have worked throughout the world to absorb as much knowledge as possible and bring it back to Western Australia. Gen and Rob believe that the combination of cabernet sauvignon and Margaret River is one of the world’s great place/variety combinations, and have worked tirelessly to set up their vineyard in Calgardup, planted in 2002 on Keenan gravelly loam. The site is sure to become one of the most heralded in Margaret River, just as Corymbia has become one of the most noted wineries in Western Australia in its short lifespan (founded in 2013). For fans of cabernet sauvignon – that expresses both profound depth and drinkability – it does not get better than this.
legendaustralia.com