Vasse Felix

2 Aug

Vasse Felix is a Mattinson 10-Star Winery — Campbell Mattinson's highest honour.
Margaret River.

Both a Margaret River pioneer and a force of modern Australian wine.

The case.

The first time I saw winemaker Virginia Willcock in action was at a regional tasting of Margaret River cabernet sauvignon in an upstairs room of the Cape Mentelle winery. This was way back in September 2001. Willcock wouldn’t make her way to the position of head winemaker at Vasse Felix until another five years hence and in winemaker terms she was, at the time, young – or at least she was in relation to most of the others in the room. And yet she owned that day, commanding it with her insight, with her interpretations of the glasses in front of us, and with the sharpness of both her palate and of her vision of what Margaret River cabernet could be. It was as obvious then as it is obvious now that Willcock was someone who belonged at the top of Australian wine.

Willcock has been the head winemaker at Vasse Felix now for nearing twenty years. Vasse Felix has been good forever but what I really like about this producer is its constant drive to be better today than it was yesterday. Vasse Felix was a pioneer – and has been a quality leader – of the Margaret River region since the 1970s; it was a great and important producer long before the arrival of Willcock. And yet in many ways the Vasse Felix wines today are made in Willcock’s image. They are disciplined wines, wild where and when they need to be, honest, reliable, forever striving to be the best that they can be. Slowly, as the years have passed, the best wines of Vasse Felix have become more refined, more elegant, and more beautiful.

The perfect case in point is the 2023 Vasse Felix Heytesbury Chardonnay. This wine somehow combines the most complex stitching with the most effortless flow. It’s exquisite, as too is the 2021 Cullity Cabernet Sauvignon (and, indeed, the full lineage of Cullity Cabernet Sauvignon). Vasse Felix, renowned now for its chardonnay and for its cabernet, has always had the malbec grape as the ace up its sleeve, which it judiciously employs. It also has access to and ownership of some of Margaret River’s most prized heritage vineyards. And then there is the irrepressible force that is Willcock. These details are the village out of which wine greatness is commonly raised.

The wines that make the case.

Vasse Felix Heytesbury Chardonnay 2023 (Margaret River): There’s such power to this release; coiled. There’s both melody and counter-melody, in a context of drama and length.
Vasse Felix Heytesbury Chardonnay 2024 (Margaret River): This is, without doubt, an outstanding release of Heytesbury Chardonnay. The intensity of fruit flavour is as exquisite as it is impressive. Winefront.
Vasse Felix Tom Cullity Cabernet Sauvignon 2021 (Margaret River): It greets you with a friendly face and then pierces you with its gaze. It’s both tight and approachable; it’s a warm handshake in a vice.

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See also [Full Vertical Vasse Felix Tom Cullity Cabernet Sauvignon 2013–2022]

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Vasse Felix is a Mattinson 10-Star Winery – the highest honour awarded by Australian wine critic Campbell Mattinson. 10-Star status recognises one thing: the quality of the wine in the glass, every glass, across the range. The full list of 10-Star Wineries constitutes Australia's Best Wineries.

Vasse FelixMargaret RiverMattinson Ten Star Wineries

Campbell Mattinson

This post was written by Campbell Mattinson. Mattinson is a former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion book, former editor of Halliday magazine, former editor of Australian Sommelier Magazine and founder of The Winefront business. He is the author of five books on wine – four of which were bestsellers (The Wine Hunter, the Big Red Wine Book 2008, the Big Red Wine Book 2009, and the Big Red Wine Book 2010).

Mattinson is also the founder of the Mattinson Photography business.

Campbell Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer for forty years. He’s the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He’s a past winner of a Louis Roederer International Wine Media Award; is the author of the award-winning book The Wine Hunter; and is the author of the best-selling novel We Were Not Men. He’s also a winner of a St Kilda Film Festival Award (as writer-director) and is a former winner of the national Best Australian Sports Writing Award. In 2026 three of his photographs were short-listed for the World Food Photography Awards.

Campbell Mattinson, who is 100% independent, has tasted between 5000 and 10,000 wines each and every year for the past 25 years. He tastes blind, in comparative brackets, as often as is practicable.

Campbell Mattinson is a journalist, a photographer, a filmmaker and a wine critic. In all of these mediums his prime motive is to tell people's stories.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com

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