Incredible value and the Margaret River are not usually part of the same sentence, but the wines of Domaine Naturaliste are awesome and they are cheap. Not cheap as in two-buck-chuck cheap, but fine wine doesn’t get more accessible than this.
With over 53 acres of mature vines, most of which are over 20 years old. Owner and Winemaker Bruce Dukes has garnered a reputation as the finest varietal winemaker in the west. The vineyards are mostly planted to chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon, but there is also cabernet franc, merlot, malbec, sauvignon blanc and semillon.
The property is farmed with organic principles and is essentially dry grown, the irrigation hasn’t been used for years, and the wines made naturally. There are a variety of soils and exposures enabling Bruce to craft wines from different individual sites as well as unbeatable value blends.
The wines are pure, bright, fruit driven and tightly coiled with immense flavour concentration, freshness and tension. It’s impossible not to love them upon release – the flavours so fresh, clear and delineated. But make no doubt of it, these are serious wines indeed, the top wines amongst Australia’s best and yes, they are at prices that most wine lovers can afford.
Domaine Naturaliste Floris Chardonnay 2023
Beautiful clear flavours with a strong white flower character. Stone fruits, lime, ginger biscuit, subtle spicy oak and fresh butter. Lots of intensity and volume, and yet so easy to drink, the flow all silk, backed up by tangy acid. Best value in the universe territory.
Domaine Naturaliste Discovery Chardonnay 2024
Lovely brightness of fruit with a rich underbelly of creamy lees and as always subtle oak. Very smooth and easy to drink, the wine’s high level of natural acidity, cleansing and refreshing. Over delivers as always.
Domaine Naturaliste Artus Chardonnay 2023
An immense wine of flavour, stuffing, structure and intensity. It’s also a chardonnay that demonstrates the sheer lavishness of the varietal and the extreme quality of the fruit and winemaker. Pungent and expressive, with white flowers, a compote of tangy stone and citrus fruits, olive, cashew nut, creamy butter, vanilla and pineapple. Terrific palate impact, taut and tensioned, yet a real powerhouse of dry extract and mid palate stuffing. Thorough, incredible deliciousness.
Domaine Naturaliste Purus Chardonnay 2024
Pure as the name implies, but it loses nothing in terms of flavour intensity and power. Malolactic is blocked, so the acid profile is different. It bloody well sizzles. Green apple, grapefruit, lime, white peach, almond meal and a sort of briny quality. A whip crack of a wine, full of tautness and tension, and yet all the elements harmonised for a very long future ahead.
Domaine Naturaliste Rebus Cabernet 2024
Perfect cabernet sauvignon. Perfect. If you ever doubted the deliciousness of cabernet, you need to try this wine. Very complex, yet sooo cabernet, with blackcurrant, violets, raspberry, hedge fruits, spicy oak and tobacco. Richly flavoured, layered and intense, with a chewy savouriness, juicy mid palate and gorgeous food loving tannins. Very fresh, the wine’s natural acidity livening up things and adding to its drinkability. Best value cabernet in Australia.
Domaine Naturaliste Morus Cabernet 2022
Domaine Naturaliste’s flagship cabernet sauvignon, and you won’t be disappointed. Black and hedge fruit compote with soy, tar and a floral profile emblematic of nebbiolo, roses. yin and yang territory. Lightness and richness, grace and force, sweet and savoury, light and dark fruits, and structure that is the most embedded and harmonised. Deep; a core of smouldering energy, but it’s controlled and supremely elegant. Formidable, beautiful, awed.
Domaine Naturaliste Rachis Syrah 2023
The joys of syrah/shiraz from every corner, nook and cranny in Australia. It is our greatest varietal, no question. The Rachis has all the Domaine Naturaliste hallmarks of intensity, complexity of flavour and the interplay of sweet and savoury. Baking spices, cut flowers, cranberry, cherry, plum, olive, pink peppercorns, tar, soy, oak and complex gripping silk tannins. Spectacular, and a wine every syrah maker in the eastern states should try. Serious fine wine at a bargain price.
