Fermoy Estate tastes gold and glamour

Margaret River’s Fermoy Estate is quaffing a string of achievements this week. The Wilyabrup winery has returned from the Melbourne Royal Wine Awards with the trophy for Best WA Shiraz and then scored a Best of Region award for its cabernet sauvignon in the James Halliday Australian Cabernet Challenge. Fermoy also recently won an inaugural gold medal at the Global Syrah Masters 2021, a UK-based international competition focusing solely on shiraz, which was relatively new territory for the winery. Senior winemaker Jeremy Hodgson said 2020 was a challenging year, making the good news of 2021 a welcome relief. Hodgson said it was a “huge honour” for both the winery’s shiraz and cabernet to be recognised as the best in WA at two prestigious wine shows. “The results are very much a reflection of the quality of our fruit and the quality of our people,” he said. In July, Fermoy’s Reserve Chardonnay 2019 scored Best in Show at the world-renowned Decanter World Wine Awards 2021, which was the highest accolade in that competition. Its newest vintage, the Reserve Chardonnay 2020, also won gold in the past two months at the Perth and Royal Adelaide wine shows. Hodgson said the in-roads the estate was making in shiraz was pleasing given South Australia tended to dominate that varietal in the major awards.