Pierro Vineyards

Like a surprising number of Margaret River’s pioneering winemakers, Pierro’s Michael Peterkin was a medical practitioner by training. His true passion, however, was wine – so much so that he put himself through the demanding Oenology course at the renowned Roseworthy College in the 1970s, and followed it up with winemaking stints at some of Western Australia’s best-known wineries (among them Cullen, where he crafted Australia’s first Semillon-Sauvignon blend). In 1980, Peterkin finally set up his own winery, Pierro, and found a way to balance his career as a country doctor with creating some of the state’s most sought-after Chardonnays and Bordeaux-style red blends (he finally gave up his medical practice in 2020, at the age of 72). The key was the amount of time and thought given to his original plantings, in the Wilyabrup sub-region of Margaret River, where Peterkin planted vines almost twice as close together as the prevailing practice to make them more competitive and thereby promote flavour intensity. Wilyabrup’s gravelly loam soils are perfectly adapted to viticulture, while the cool breezes that blow in off the Indian and Southern Oceans help to produce grapes with bright aromatic characters and zesty acidity. The subtle, restrained winemaking at Pierro is designed to enhance this vibrant personality, rather than to mask it, and is today continued to be run Mike Peterkin with support from his son Nic.