For many winemakers, Margaret River’s epic surf is as thrilling as its grapes – when the waves are curling, the lure of the ocean wins every time. Hear about a big wave surfer’s brutal wipe out, why one winemaker swapped surfing for extreme mountain biking, and find pro surfing royalty in the region’s Surf Gallery at Aravina Estate.
For many winemakers, Margaret River’s epic surf is as thrilling as its grapes – when the waves are curling, the lure of the ocean wins every time. Hear about a big wave surfer’s brutal wipe out, why one winemaker swapped surfing for extreme mountain biking, and find pro surfing royalty in the region’s Surf Gallery at Aravina Estate.
Welcome to Wine Unearthed. This podcast takes you behind the scenes of the Margaret River wine making region in Western Australia, the very place named best in Asia Pacific by travel authority, Lonely Planet. It's produced for you by Your Margaret River Region and the Margaret River Wine Association. My name's Fleur Bainger. I'm a food and travel journalist and I'll be taking you through this gorgeous spot, tasting the wine, meeting the people and breathing in the surrounds.
Speaker 2:[ sounds]
Speaker 1:Locals often joke that if you can't find a wine maker in the winery, they'll be out in the surf. Margaret River's legendary waves have drawn countless people to the region, but winemakers seem to have a particular affinity to the clean, curling breaks."It's a beautiful place. What attracted everybody to it was the things beyond wine". In this podcast, we'll meet Mike Gad, surfer and mountain biker who came to Margaret River and never left. Another winemaker and big wave surfer will tell us about his worst ever wipeout."I kind of skipped work one morning when the conditions are good and thought I'll just have a quick surf before work, yet everything went pear shaped". And we'll take a walk through the WA Surf Gallery at Aravina Estate to see surfing royalty."Taj has won a lot of things around the world. He was a professional surfer for 18 years". But first wine writer, Peter Forrestal joins us for a quick devil in a wine that'll warm you right up after a splash in the ocean.
Speaker 3:What have we got here?"This is the 2017 Cullen Red Moon, a new wine that Vanya has developed, It's um, from the families Mangan Vineyard. So this one is mainly Malbeck with petite verdot and a touch of Merlot. And this particular wine was actually harvested on the, the day of the red moon in February of 2017. One of the things that by dynamics does is it emphasizes, I guess the closeness of bit a culture to the making of the wine. And I guess Margaret River in it in a way is sort of built very much on that connection because so many wine makers in Margaret River came here because of nature and what it offers, didn't they? No, I think that's absolutely fair to say. Joe Of the most vulnerable, uh, surfers, uh, Dennis Hogan of course, who just, he loved his a Red Gate beach and David Honan, David Honan of course, uh, is a well known surfer, although he did cop a bit of stick because, uh, some of the younger champs were critical of the fact that he used a boogie board. Huh.
Speaker 1:I'm a bookie water. I love weaver.
Speaker 3:Well, David would love you for that. The other important surfer of course, is[inaudible] column herself. I just have been, he has been a lifetime of surfer. No question. I didn't know that. Oh Yeah, she, Huh? Yeah, no, she has only surfed.
Speaker 1:Now let's make diamon a store, a cool calm one. Micah who's regarded as one of the best big wave surfers in the Margaret River region. After working as a lawyer, he joined his family's Wildwood winery. Then later switched to flying fish cove winery, but every spare moment he has, he's out on the water. He wants surfed a monster wave with an estimated 60 foot face that's about 18 meters. It earned him an award for surfing. What was believed to be the biggest wave ever ridden in Australia at the time. He says he was intent on taking it.
Speaker 4:I remember when I caught it, it was a bit of competition for the wide bit of jockeying. Other guys wanted the same wave and I was kind of screaming out, up top of my lines that I'm in for this wave and those other people are going for it. Peeled off. And I remember LIGO, the Rod, and got to the bottom of the wave and I looked up, it was bigger than I'd ever sort of seen before and I was in a really 50, 50 spot. So I just basically put my head down and ran at that point. And luckily it did. The Y didn't catch up to me and I kind of survived the ride pretty well. So, yeah. Pretty memorable. What about the fear factor? Yeah, well I guess, um, the fears, the fears, kind of the fun part as well, you know, does it gets everything in your body for pumping and all the adrenaline flying it? Yeah. It all kind of works on the day or it doesn't tell me about your worst wipe out all they'd have to be at, um, a Biddle spot called, um, the womb, which is snare Ellen's brook, which is kind of a historic place in Margaret River. And there's um, a really, um, got a nasty little wave that blocks close to the shore and it really shallow rates break and I'll kind of skip skip work one morning when a conditions are good and thought I'll just have a quick surf before work. Yet everything went pear shaped. I caught a cold, a tricky wave that basically collapsed on my head and it used to abuse me as this is the meat, the sandwich between my surfboard and the lift. I managed to snap a couple of bones in my leg. I spent about eight months on the sidelines healing up. So yeah, it was a shocking injury, but the place is notorious for it kind a wife. I don't Really gonna go surfing too.
Speaker 1:If we look back at your younger self, was it winemaking or surfing that was in the blood and led you to Margaret River? Oh, definitely. I'm surfing. Yeah.
Speaker 4:My parents moved down to the area or the region more in the northern end of Margaret River. That pretty early on when I was still finishing off and we were taking, before that period we were taking just about every spare weekend down there for a surfing holiday on Oh, school holidays or whatever. So that's kind of what led us to the area because it is such a beautiful area for surfing and the whole coast line. And my father was um, Gulu cane surfer as well, so it wasn't long before he bought a place. Um, that's when he kind of started looking around for some sort of pursuit so he could justify living down there. He got into the kind of viticultural side of, of the industry and started working with local people that were establishing vineyards and, and it kind of blossomed from there. Did he have anyone making background hello? One drinking background? Uh, he didn't, he might have some really bad B if that counts. No, he didn't really, he didn't have any background at all. They were kind of newbies and I was just talking to my mom this morning though. They went to pick up some cuttings to put in the ground. And I had no idea what they were picking out. They took this trailer to pick them up and they could have, she could have put on her lap. So that's kind of how new they were to the whole game. They picked up the business risk by doing it basically.
Speaker 1:Well, when you work in the winery these days, because surfing is such a big part of things, is it kind of seen as just quite normal to take off for a bit of a surf if the swell is pumping.
Speaker 4:Ah, who's listening to this? When I was in the family business, oh I had a lot of freedom to do that, those sort of things. But the one industry is kind of boom and bust in a work sense as we have a really full on period during vintage. And I think most businesses cut people a little bit of slack around that period because I do have to put in pretty long hours over that period. So yeah, I don't think anyone begrudges um, one that cause the old surf. And, and most of them will peel off and have a good wife if, if, if the conditions such that it's a good surf, are there ever days where secures, get cold repeatedly. So there's plenty of sickies going right. Well, that my lesson, not to skip school because I ended up on the sidelines for eight months, so not me anymore.
Speaker 1:Another one maker who came to Margaret River for its consistent surf is Mike get, he's made wine for many of the regions, icon wineries from Cape Mintel to Cullen and Zana do. But he says he never actually expected to.
Speaker 5:I grew up in South Australia and I was working on initially down McLaren Vale. The first time I came over was with a couple of mates and we'd packed up my panel van with boards and everything and drive across the Nullarbor, stayed at shadows entity and Prune Vignette for a month and went surfing. And I visited the wineries that were there while I was there. I was offered a vintage job at Colin and so I thought, oh, awesome. You know, I get to come back next year and I'll do vintage or Carolyn and that'd be fantastic and then I'll die back to South Australia and do what everyone else is doing. I'm working across the valley, so I know I didn't expect to be there beyond the vintage. How long have you been there now? Nearly 30 years. It was just one of those things that, you know, as a young wine maker back then, it was so far from the rest of the country that no one really gave it any consideration. Once I got there, the opportunities just kept happening. Like I'm, I did my six month at Callan and as I was leaving John Darren from Caitlin till said, listen, we'd really love you to come and work for us and our Wayne. Jeez, you know, I job at Cape until that looks good on the resume. It just, that just get happening in 30 years later. I've got a house, I'm married and I'll live in Margaret, and most of us were there. I mean, the thing about Margaret are about, and the wine story day, it wasn't just about the wine go. I attracted everybody to, it was the things beyond wine is a beautiful place. First Time people go there, they're actually go, wow, this is a beautiful place and if you want to be a winemaker and going surfer, where or who do you want to live? So it attracts people who are interested in wine and other things. When Mike hurt his shoulder, he turned to mountain biking for his nature and adrenaline fix, did some ligaments in my shoulder and I basically couldn't paddle anymore. It just hurt too much and the physio said, you keep doing it, you're going to wreck your shoulder. So I had to stop, you know, and let it heal. But I don't like sitting still. So I ended up getting into mountain biking and that was right at kind of the beginning of when mountain biking was taking off. I just happened to have a Mike that was right into it and I'm, there was only a small trial. It was really tiny unsanctioned we called it illegal trial through one of the national parks in Margaret River. And again, it was that combination of the environment and you know, the adrenaline and all that sort of stuff that surfing gave you that I kind of loved about mountain biking. So yeah, I got hooked on that. Did they always go through forests? These trials? Yeah, I mean that's the best part of of mountain biking. You talked to my surface and the best part of surfing a lot of people talk about is being in the ocean. The Best Mountain biking is not just about seeing how and what jumps you can do or anything like that. It's about riding through, you know, amazing environments. And we're lucky in Margaret River to be spoiled with some pretty nice national parks and beautiful areas that you can, you can mountain bikes story. So yeah, it was the thrill plus the environment to have that thrill in. That was, you walked out of it. It was almost zen, you know, it was a little bit, that was my, my form of meditation was to go smash myself through a national park and, and just every now and again you'd stop and just go, bloody hell, this is amazing. You know, and then off you go again and you don't do anything by halves. How far did you go with the mountain biking on a national scale? Another mate of mine was, you're right, Ryan is a downhilling. I saw that once and went, oh, I to have a crack at bath, which is essentially you throw yourself off a cliff with a mountain bike and all the helmets and downhill bikes are like a motorbike without a motive. They're big, big suspension. Restarted doing that. Got Right into it racing on the national circuit. So I did the, a national circuit on the um, Australian mountain bike downhilling tour. It was all about hanging out with people riding really interesting places, you know, racing the Australian championships
Speaker 6:and things like that. Yeah. Managed to come out reasonably unscathed. I locked myself out twice. I broke in Columbine twice this side. Once that side of broken ribs or dislocated shoulder, which killed my shoulder again, but apart from that I came out pretty unscathed.
Speaker 1:None of that will happen to you if you're just going on a leisurely bike ride between wineries, pull isles, the owner of Harry Marron bike cafe where you can hire all sorts of bikes, says he's working to develop more winery riding trails in Margaret River. I caught up with him at a mountain biking competition in the forest.
Speaker 7:The trials I I today, I understand there are a few more crashes live yesterday to pet you might've expected.
Speaker 6:We've got a circle of wineries. That board of the town and using your bicycle to get them and it is a very easy option. Sort of enables people to sort of sample the local forests, see a bit of farm land. Being on a, on a bicycle really gives you a whole different level of that experience. The sights and the smells, the quality of the light, the quality of the air. What group of wineries can cyclists currently ride between the current cycle route takes in Cape Mintel to do voyager and then Lewin after Louann we've got a journey back through the natural forest back to the township from Margaret River, so it's quite a good roundup of what Margaret has to offer
Speaker 1:back to surfing. Now. Margaret River's waves are so clean and consistent. It's become an annual fixture on the World Surf League tour, the Margaret River Pro Lewis, big names such as Kelly Slater and Joel Parkinson and local surfing royalty. Taj Burrow is also a regular surfing actually predates the wine industry by more than a decade pioneer surfers explored this area way back in the 1950s this story and every decade since has been chronicled by Jim King and his friends who've put together the Franchisee Wy Surf Gallery at era Vayner estate
Speaker 8:and, and it opened in uh, December, 2017 let's go have a look show. Yup. Okay. We'll say starting, we were running it through the different tech guys, but this starting up, this area here is the 50s that's the pioneers surfing in WWI. I love this picture of a kind of a shanty shack made out of corrugated on with lots of smiling faces, big white, wide Greens coming out of it. And tell me about this one. This is funny, I can't remember it all, but these are Americans. These are people that come out from California to WWI, uh, to surf for three months. I made a Shakeout, a driftwood and lived at left-handers at the back of Christ town. That was kind of how it was, wasn't it? Didn't you sleep in your car? Yeah. Uh, well in the 50s, you didn't have a choice. All the pioneers, they'd sleep in hammocks and in their cars under the Melaleucas at yelling up. Yeah. I used to sleep in the car. My poor, we had an old home and I got the suits that was laid down, but it was still very uncomfortable.
Speaker 9:[inaudible]
Speaker 8:um, then we had trouble with people coming out from Boston at night, beating people up. I think the surface, we're taking some of the girlfriends from some of the locals and there was a bit of friction there. Even back in the fifties that were having trouble. They're getting into the local dances cause the uh, the farmers figured that they were gonna lose their girls.
Speaker 9:[inaudible]
Speaker 1:does that all kind of came to a head really from what I know, around about the seventies or so, is that kind of when things kind of exploded down here?
Speaker 8:Oh yeah. A light lightened the sixties summer of love, California and room to come. The hippies and all the surface started getting along here. If you look at back in the fifties you'll see everybody was short hair healthy, well, no low. They used to drink a lot, play a lot, but all of a sudden everyone become hippies in it. Yeah. The funny thing about all these long haired people heaving are damn hippies. They're still here now and they're all sensible. I've worked all their life. They are retired. They left the known I didn't want to work in the city. I come down here, I got employment and I've lived here all the life that lived the dream at this time
Speaker 1:where the surface merging with the winemakers because this was when the wine industry was just starting off in Margaret River. How did the two worlds meet?
Speaker 8:Well, the surface had to make a living. There must've been more vineyards around and I started working, uh, pruning that trays and that during that period it was only seasonal. And when they weren't doing that though, our carding high in that for the farmers.
Speaker 1:What is it about wine makers or winery workers and the surf[inaudible]
Speaker 8:it's just something natural about it. It was, seemed like a good fit here. Um, it's a surf Garry here being located in a winery. I mean just look out here now. It's just such a beautiful place. Everything's natural, I guess wise, natural too. It's just a natural environment. I'm 72 now. I serve February tie with my brother. I think it keeps me fit and healthy and it's just what I do. I think I tried some other things like golf from whatever I found. I just can't do it. And Surfing is unite with me. I've been doing it priva 55 years now and uh, as much as my lifestyle.
Speaker 1:And it wouldn't be a surfing exhibition without some staff. How are from local processor?
Speaker 8:Taj Burrow? Taj is one, a lot of things around the will. He was a professional surfer for 18 years, which is a long time. He started when you aside and he went to 36 it was always in the top five in the world line. But in 2009, he the pipeline masters in a y on the north shore. The first prize is this wonderful board we've got here with the Jerry Lopez painting on it. And that board up there looks a bit bad at, but that was[inaudible] first board.
Speaker 1:You can look up Jim King's work on Facebook. Just search for surfing down South
Speaker 10:[inaudible][inaudible]
Speaker 1:you're listening to local band, the new towns and their track circles. Additional music by Josh Hogan and Ned Beckley. This podcast is supported by the international wine tourism grant funded by wine Australia. Margaret River wine association, Margaret River Busselton Tourism Association. Southwest Development Commission and Australia southwest. It's been scripted, recorded and presented by me. Fluor manger from white noise media, sound design by Tom Allen from barking wolf and produced by Sophie Mathewson. We acknowledged the word Dandy soap, water and forest people as the traditional owners of this region. I remind you to walk softly on country for inspiration. Planning your trip to this beautiful part of the world is@margaretriver.com.
Speaker 9:[inaudible] I hate sick kids.[inaudible].