Juniper Estate claims top honours at Royal Perth Wine Awards with 2024 Cornerstone Karridale Chardonnay

Margaret River winemaker Juniper Estate has claimed this year’s Wine of Show at the Royal Perth Wine Awards with its 2024 Cornerstone Karridale Chardonnay.

Also taking out Best White Wine, Best WA Wine, and Best Chardonnay, the award-winning drop is the first complete vintage by winemaker Andrew Bretherton.

Considered Western Australia’s leading wine competition, the Perth Royal Wine Awards date back to 1843. with each wine blind judged by a panel of respected local, interstate and international experts.

Emerging as the most impressive of the 1096 wines entered, including 290 whites and 152 Chardonnays, the result puts the 2024 product in the top 0.09 percent of all wines presented.

Also recognised for their other show entry, Juniper Estate’s 2024 Cornerstone Wilyabrup Chardonnay earned a Gold Medal in the Chardonnay class.

Comprising three separate sites, the family-run operation maintains a cellar door and winery in Wilyabrup, along with locations in Karridale in the south and Metricup in the north.

Juniper Estate was founded in 1997 by Roger Hill and his wife Gillian Anderson, though the Wilyabrup vineyard dates back to 1973.

Second generation owner and CEO Tom Hill reflected on the recent success, which he considered recognition for 27 years of ground work.

“We have a great team of people in the Juniper family — Andy making incredible wines, and Ianto Ward our viticulturist, who is very passionate about sustainability, soil health and the vines,” Mr Hill said.

Joining the operation in 2023, head winemaker Andrew Bretherton was proud to be acknowledged for his team’s efforts.

“It is a great reward for the hard work put in by both our vineyard and winery teams and a fantastic acknowledgement of the quality of our programs and our vineyard sites,” Mr Bretherton said.

“In a warm vintage, we were always very excited by the power, complexity and pristine fruit that is expressed in this wine.”

Home brewers keen to learn a few secrets about award-winning wine making may be interested to learn the process behind crafting the 2024 Cornerstone Karridale Chardonnay.

Juniper Estate said they used whole bunch, hand-picked grapes placed immediately into the barrel for wild ferment, spending nine months in oak, then blended, lightly fined and filtered.

Juniper Estate wine club members can purchase the 2024 Cornerstone Karridale Chardonnay for $48.75 through their website.