NEW Swinney ‘Farvie’ Releases
20+/20 points - 2023 Farvie Syrah (Perfect Score)
19.5/20 points - 2023 Farvie Grenache
19.5/20 points - 2023 Farvie Mourvèdre
- Matthew Jukes, The Fifty Finest Wines 2024
“Swinney’s Farvie wines are a tale of greatness.”
James Halliday, The Weekend Australian
“These are now the established benchmarks and should be on the
buy-now list for anyone with an interest in contemporary Australian wine."
Ray Jordan, The West Australian
"Swinney is in the process of making a very powerful statement about the Frankland River region via the delivery of these world class wines."
Erin Larkin, Robert Parker Wine Advocate, 2023
Join Owners, Janelle & Matthew Swinney and Winemaker, Rob Mann for either the Masterclass or Dinner where the new Farvie releases are unveiled (official release to be Feb 17th)!
Swinney have crafted WA’s best reviewed Shiraz, Grenache, Mourvèdre and Rose styles … and now possibly Australia’s greatest ever… say the local, national and international press.
Taste through 15 Swinney’s including…
2018 - 2023 Farvie Syrah (6 vintage vertical)
2022 & 2023 Farvie Grenache
2022 & 2023 Farvie Mourvèdre
Saturday February 15th
Masterclass: 3-5pm, 15 Wines with nibbles, $97
Dinner: 7pm, 15 Wines with 5 Courses, $245
Be the first to experience the new releases, purchase your tickets via the buttons below.
The Farvie Context
George John Alexander Swinney, affectionately known as Farvie, and his family settled at ‘Franklands’ in 1922. Today, George’s great grand-children, siblings Matt and Janelle, continue his legacy through their vineyards and wine label.
The Farvie wines, first released in March 2020 from the 2018 vintage, represent the highest quality expression of our family’s best vineyard sites. Our ambition is the creation of wines that sit alongside the best in the world for their variety while evoking a beautiful and singular image of our family home in Frankland River.
The wines are the result of a vineyard–focused philosophy of meticulous attention to site selection and precise grape growing practices. These include dry growing, organic farming principles, intensive shoot and fruit thinning, and careful, deliberate bunch selection from fruit growing either on the morning side of the canopy or protected by shade cloth.
Production of each Farvie wine is limited to just a few hundred cases per year. Our 2023 Farvie Wines will be released on the 17th of February, 2025.
"In 2023 the Farvie trio has done something near-impossible. They have already taken three wines at the highest level and improved their lot. It is easy to loosen the wheel nuts on a car but almost impossible to tighten them further. This Swinney has done like Cerberus, I find it hard to choose one head from another, as all three are so spectacularly imposing. Like this mythical hound, they are all attached to the same elementally powerful body - the venerable soils in this unique corner of Frankland River."
Matthew Jukes, The Fifty Finest Wines 2024
The Wine List and Menu
On Arrival
Frankland River Riesling 2024, Our Price $32
It’s hard to go past intensity of fruit flavour in a young riesling, and this Swinney 2024 has plenty of it. Lemon, salt, lime leaf and wet stone characters put on a pretty dramatic – not to mention classy – display, the finish then chalky, textural and dry. There’s a tonic water aspect to this. And plenty of mouth perfume. And something of a meaty savouriness. And yet all the while the fruit feels pristine, and concentrated. It’s a cracking example of Frankland River riesling, at its best. It’s a wine of both joy, and quality.
95 Points Campbell Mattinson, The Winefront (November 2024)
Olives, Sourdough EVOO
1st Course
Mourvèdre Rosé 2024, Our Price $
Jamon, nectarine, macadamia
2nd Course
Grenache 2023, Our Price $43
Nick Ryan Best Wines of 2024
The Swinney vineyard in Frankland River has rewritten the map for Australian grenache, pulling focus from the traditional South Australian heartland and shining a light on WA's remote south-west. Tight and coiled at first, it unfurls gloriously in the glass to reveal dark raspberry and cranberry aromatics, a fleshy, gently gamey core of fruit and a complex weave of fine, gravelly tannins.
95 Points Nick Ryan, The West Australian (November 2024)
Mourvèdre 2023, Our Price $43
Yet another remarkable Rhone variety expressed perfectly from Frankland River. The aim appears to have been to present this as true a reflection of the vineyard as possible. It’s from bush vines and then a combination of whole bunches to build structure, wild fermentation to build texture and then finishing off for 11 months on lees in older French oak. It all contributes to a beautifully expressive wine capturing the distinctive ferrous regionality and the soft supple fruit of the variety with a little dried herb and sage bush lift.
95 Points Ray Jordan, rayjordanwine.com.au (August 2024)
Syrah 2023, Our Price $43
This excellent syrah includes the newly introduced clones 470 and 171, which contribute to a new level of complexity. It’s been made with a light winemaker’s touch and only a tiny amount of new French oak to spice things up. There is structure here diving deep into the medium bodied highly perfumed and supple fruit characters. Spices and a little of the ferrous personality adds to the complexity. Brilliant and bright with such a vibrant palate profile.
96 Points Ray Jordan, rayjordanwine.com.au (August 2024)
Roasted tomatoes, stracciatella, basil
3rd Course
Farvie Grenache 2022, Our Price $150
The intensity strikes immediately on the nose, while once the wine starts to roll across your palate you know you in a head zone of great power. It was a warm and concentrated vintage. Brilliant crimson colour with a bright luminosity and brilliant purity that lifts effortlessly from the glass. Floral notes with a dried herbie sage bush character engages immediately. Dry chalky tannins with a trace of minerally iron filings. It’s vibrant and fleshy with real volume of flavour. Continues to mark its turf as an Australian classic.
98 Points Ray Jordan, rayjordanwine.com
Farvie Grenache 2023, Our Price $150
Matthew Jukes, The Fifty Finest Wines of 2024
2023 Swinney Farvie Grenache (30% whole bunch, 13.8 %alcohol, 100% Wilson’s Pool fruit) has a stunning nose, and it is brutally firm on the palate. It slams your taste buds shut only to open them again to see if they are still alive, and then it invades again without hesitation with extremely forceful and powerful purple fruit notes. It tastes darker than it looks. The colour is a vivid carmine, and this sanguineous colour leads one to anticipate a lighter style, but the acid profile and bitterness deliver a cut lip and bruised nose. The ironstone gravel soils make this an arresting and unforgiving wine. The sudden impact and collateral sensorial damage make it riveting. It shocks and then amazes and almost immediately soothes. It is the angriest and most demonic Grenache with the kindest heart. Half an hour later, the nose is singing, and the brittle edges calm a touch, making it evocative and grown-up, making the more open and ice creamy Grenaches seem uncomplicated and two-dimensional. The tension on the finish is what sets this wine and its siblings apart. It is unique from these varieties’ perspective. This is one of the most impressive Farvie Grenaches to date, and it continues a run of wines that defies comprehension.
19.5 Points Matthew Jukes, matthewjukes.com (January 2025)
Juniper dusted quail, eggplant kasundi, buttermilk tadziki
4th Course
Farvie Mourvèdre 2022, Our Price $150
Halliday Wine Companion Top 100 Wines 2024: Best Red Over $50
Cassandra Charlick Top WA wines 2023, Decanter
Currently tightly wound and holding its cards close to its chest, its starry journey ahead is clear. Vibrant, densely knit dark black plum aromas with a jewel-like clarity, along with violets, star anise, eucalypt, heady ferrous notes and crushed earth. Tannins might be tight and bunched up in their youth, but they are chalky and fine in structure, and the long line of delicate acidity helps deliver waves of flavour long after the last sip. Complex, vivacious and nuanced; a new Mourvèdre benchmark has been set.
98 Points Cassandra Charlick, Decanter (January 2024)
Farvie Mourvèdre 2023, Our Price $150
Matthew Jukes, The Fifty Finest Wines of 2024
“This time, the recipe involves 66% whole bunches, and the alcohol level is 13.8%. The fruit comes from the same source as the Grenache. Farvie Mourvèdre is more expansive, and it is immediately convivial. This variety’s softer impact and more open-armed expression lull you into a false sense of security before the trademark Farvie minerality attacks without warning or mercy. The moisture is sucked from the palate and is replaced with stoniness and skin characters that tease and striate. These palate manoeuvres cause rivulets of juiciness to collect, which refresh the senses with clean, free-running, open and gentle red and purple fruit flavours. It is stunning. There are discreet moments of fleshiness and controlled eroticism that work wonders from a pheromonal level. Fig notes and fresh-peeled bark abound, and it glistens with carnality. The fact that the well of profound fruit notes senesces to a single point of awesome and arresting dryness is entirely compelling.
19.5 Points Matthew Jukes, matthewjukes.com (January 2025)
Duck confit, melted beetroot, baby cos, fetta, candied walnuts
5th Course
Swinney Farvie Syrah 2018, Our Price N/A
A jaw-dropping, ground-breaking syrah. This is not the sweet fruit Aussie shiraz or syrah but more a savoury, grainy style more associated with the Rhone in France. Fine, firm tannins run deepand the oak has been expertly and subtly applied. But it is the way the fruit expresses that strike as different and exciting.
98 Points, Ray Jordan, The West Australian
Swinney Farvie Syrah 2019, Our Price N/A
Hand picked from a single parcel of 22yo syrah vines…Like the Hokusai wave, this crashes and courses with flavours and textures, ebbing and flowing on the palate. This is balanced, restrained, long, powerful and most importantly, shaped and structured by supple, chewy tannins. They hold the fruit in the cups of their hands and usher it through a very long finish. A weightlessly poetic wine.
98 Points Erin Larkin, James Halliday Wine Companion (August 2021)
Swinney Farvie Syrah 2020, Our Price N/A
Fragrant, fine, sturdy, young, closed. Soft, balanced, textured, round, with long fine lingering tannins.
18.9 points, JJ
This is a Syrah that will make the wine world sit-up and think what is possible for this variety in Frankland River…It has an incredibly deep and dense colour…The texture and brightness of the palate is a feature. It is also a wine that is unafraid to show its tannins. Winemaker Rob Mann says it is inspired a lot by what is drunk in Europe... A wine that redefines Syrah in much the same way the Grenache has redefined that variety.
98 Points, Ray Jordan, Winepilot.com
Swinney Farvie Syrah 2021, Our Price $150
The Swinney wines from Frankland River are some of the most exciting to emerge in this country over the last decade and the Farvie series is the very best of them. The nose immediately signals the elegance to come. Complete, generous, balanced and with such finesse. Notes of cherries, dry herbs, tobacco leaves, blueberries, hints of truffles, licorice and a flick of pepper. Seamless, there is weight but the wine dances with silk for tannins. Good intensity throughout, but it is never intrusive. Superb length too, this is a brilliant wine.
98 Points Ken Gargett, Winepilot.com (August 2023)
Swinney Farvie Syrah 2022, Our Price $150
I think this has claims to be the finest Farvie Syrah yet in its relatedly short history. The colour is just brilliant and bright with a glowing purely crimson hue. Power, intensity and concentration delivered with such poise. Bright red fruits with floral dark cherry and a little black olive adds to its nuanced capture on the nose. The palate is sublime, almost perfect, in its structure, poise and delivery. The sweet natural fruits are balanced and aligned with the fine minerally, ironstone ferruginous characters. Continues to redefine the Australian varietal style.
99 Points Ray Jordan, rayjordanwine.com
Swinney Farvie Syrah 2023, Our Price $150
Matthew Jukes, The Fifty Finest Wines of 2024
Finally, the featured wine in this extraordinary trio. 2023 Swinney Farvie Syrah employs 55% whole bunches, 13.7% alcohol, and the fruit is derived 70% Powderbark B2 and 30% Wilson’s Pool. This is a super-closed and incredibly combative wine, and all the action happens in pin-drop silence. This is a quiet assassin, and the tension throughout is remarkable. It is not easy to determine the grape variety on first taste, and nor should it be because the vineyard and its intense minerality speak louder than the flesh and skins of the grapes. The frictive layers of anti-fruit silently fall away to reveal a spectacular statuesque Syrah. Toned, lithe, brightly fruited and yet immovable, there is not a molecule out of place, and it stands riveted to the spot with a commanding gaze and unshakable temperament.
20+ Points Matthew Jukes,matthewjukes.com