Behind the global brand of Sandalford Wines lies a rich and fascinating history and this year marks the 185-year anniversary of the iconic Swan Valley winemaker.
From one of Australia’s most sustainable wineries at Caversham, Sandalford produces Prendiville, Estate Reserve, Margaret River and the 1840 range of award-winning wines from two fertile vineyards.
With advanced viticultural practices and a progressive winemaking team, Sandford enjoys a long-standing reputation for quality and exceeding expectations at every price point.
Its beginnings date back to 1840 and coincide with both European settlement in the burgeoning colony of Perth and the birth of Western Australia’s world-famous wine industry.
Queen Victoria granted John Septimus Roe – WA’s first Surveyor-General – 4000 acres of land on the riverbanks at West Swan in honour of his 57 years’ service to the Commonwealth. He named the property Sandalford after a priory in Berkshire, England – his original home.
Among John Roe’s significant legacy was the setting aside of Kings Park and laying out the towns of Perth and Fremantle.
He and wife Matilda had 13 children and Sandalford was left to his eldest son, James Broun Roe, who in turn passed the estate to his son, John Frederick Roe, who took a keen interest in the fertile lands of the estate.
A fascinating memoir by Frederick Logue, the son of Sandalford Estate’s manager in the early 1900s, illustrates this significant era.
Sandalford was Swan Valley’s premier agrarian estate with cropping, cattle grazing, vegetables and extensive vineyards and fruit orchards. The property hummed to seasonal rhythms – Summer stone fruit picking was followed by harvesting grapes until late Autumn when currants, sultanas and raisins were dried on wire netting racks and the yearly task of readying the soil for another crop began all over.
John Septimus Roe had experimented with grape varieties that found their way to the new colony – many from South Africa – and the most suited to the estate’s terroir thrived. Muscats, Malagas, Fronignacs, Chasselas and Ohanez – a thick-skinned Spanish grape which proved highly suitable for export – were harvested by hand.
A horse-drawn lorry collected the full cases supporting the labour of picking. Table grapes positioned in open, overflowing jarrah boxes were carted to metropolitan markets the evening of the day they were packed.
Sandalford’s export grapes were the ‘aristocrats of the vineyard’ and J.F. Roe was the first Swan Valley vigneron to engage overseas markets, pioneering the use of cork dust as a means of preserving grapes during long sea transits.
The estate survived the Depression because it was both well-diversified and well-managed. Commercial winemaking accelerated during the 1940s after World War II. Migrants – particularly Croatians and Italians – began to come to the Swan Valley after the first war and the second wave was particularly great for the wine industry as the immigrants brought new knowledge and techniques.
The estate flourished and wines produced from its vines met the needs of the local community and further afield as the region’s reputation grew.
Dorham Mann – son of famed winemaking pioneer Jack Mann – was Sandalford’s winemaker from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s and under his watch, the Roe family expanded into the Margaret River region, purchasing a 300-hectare property at Wilyabrup – a destination now recognised on the world stage for Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Shiraz.
The 1990s heralded a new era for Sandalford Wines. WA’s Prendiville family was already immersed in tourism and hospitality when they identified Sandalford Wines as a perfect fit for their growing portfolio of iconic businesses.
In 1990, the Prendivilles successfully acquired Sandalford and devised a plan to revitalise the 160-year-old WA brand. After spending $10 million redeveloping the company’s facilities, their vision of a business that not only produces wines of distinction but also the perfect synergy of wine and tourism has come to fruition.
John Septimus Roe would have been amazed and proud to know today wines from his founding estate are exported to more than 40 countries around the globe!
