No matter what you’ve been led to expect, nothing quite prepares you for that sharp intake of breath when you first set eyes on Rob and Gen Mann’s Calgardup Vineyard. Turning off the road into the bushland and churning the red dirt beneath your tyres, you barely have an inkling. And then you see it, an oasis of closely planted, pristinely presented, organically farmed vines enclosed by towering marri trees. Audible beyond is the call of the ocean, which has such a strong say in this site’s success.
The unimaginable transition between the main road and vineyard occurs within the space of a couple of hundred metres. The path Rob and Gen travelled to get here was infinitely longer. You might think that the example of Rob’s legendary grandfather, Jack, gave him a shortcut, or the fact he and Gen were precocious talents and bloody hard workers from the off might have shortened the route, or that they had it all cracked when Rob was headhunted by Cape Mentelle and Gen was snapped up by Howard Park in the mid-2000s.
This might be the case if Rob and Gen were growing good wine from a good site. But this vision was and is much, much bigger than that.
It turns out Rob didn’t share the common conception that his initial stint in Margaret River was an unqualified success. “I’d probably been a frustrated Cabernet maker at Cape Mentelle, never quite being able to nail what I was looking for,” he told the Vininspo! podcast. “In ’14, I was the closest I’d come, and then the tap on the shoulder; it was like, ‘Hey, we’d like you to go to Newton (Vineyard).’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, but I finally made the wine I wanted to make, and now I’m off.’ So, in that sense, it took nine years at Cape Mentelle to try and make one good Cabernet. Or what I thought was a really great Cabernet.”
Returning from Napa to Western Australia, Rob was armed with the Cape Mentelle learning curve and the Newton experience. But he had more than that up his sleeve, having scouted out prospective sites from his early days in the region. “I basically spent every weekend driving around Margaret River, looking at the soil maps, looking at the climate maps, looking at the 50-year climatic forecasts, the predictions about climate change, et cetera, and identified some really specific areas in Margaret River where I thought I could plant a vineyard and make great Cabernet. So that took about 15 years of searching.”
The search was worth it; the site is so special, and the Manns knew precisely the style of wine they were after.
“This is uber maritime—it’s basically as close as you can get to you know having your toes in the water growing grapes,” says Rob of the site. “Being close to the ocean, particularly this close, gives you a really strong buffering effect from particularly those warm days. That’s when you can do damage to the high notes of Cabernet. It can make the tannins quite aggressive and tough due to overexposure. So, we’re looking for something that’s really quite seamless, elegant, characterful, distinctive.”
This 2024 from Rob and Gen is liquid proof that their quest was an unqualified success—and that they still set their sights higher than almost anyone else in the game.
2024 Corymbia ‘Calgardup Vineyard’ Cabernet Sauvignon RRP $71
This wine embodies our heritage, our future and our dreams—the realisation of a dream seeded by Rob’s grandfather, Jack Mann. Rob recalls being allowed to taste a 1971 Houghton Cabernet at dinner with Jack and his wife, Angela, at just 10 years old and deciding there and then that Cabernet was his future. It’s a privilege to see that dream come to life. Unorthodox in style, this is a unique expression of Margaret River Cabernet.
Organically dry-grown just 2km from the wild Indian Ocean, our Calgardup Vineyard Cabernet captures the cool, coastal heartbeat of the Indian Ocean breaking onto the famous Redgate Beach in Margaret River. The ancient granitic gravels give fruit with incredible purity and energy–Cabernet that feels alive in the glass.
The 2024 season will be remembered as one for the record books. It was warm, dry and early. Our Calgardup Vineyard felt the full heat of summer, but with its toes dipped in the cool waters of the Indian Ocean just a stone’s throw away, the steady hand of the coastal influence allowed our vineyard to hold its own this season. It’s only taken us 20 years, but for the first time, we’ve harvested fruit from a block of vines we planted ourselves on our Calgardup Vineyard. The new fruit (337 clone and 4th-generation sélection-massale Houghton) contributes gravitas and layered texture to the 2024 vintage. The resulting wine is a testament to an ideal site and plenty of hard work and attention to detail.
The fruit was harvested by hand in early March, individually berry-sorted, and then underwent natural, whole-berry fermentation in a single French oak vat. Maturation followed in the same French oak vat before bottling in June 2025.
This wine tastes of the grape, the dirt and the season without pretension. The wine is sanguine, with an immediate lift of native coastal herbs, violets, and aniseed, layered over dark wild fruits of blackberry. Roasted hazelnut, salted plum, black tea and kelp offer complexity to the landscape of flavour. Beneath, the wine hums with graphite dust, ironstone and sun-warmed gravel tannins that carry that unmistakable Calgardup tension. You can almost taste the sea breeze and feel the gravel underfoot. – Rob & Gen Mann
An almost refreshing feel, squeaky in texture, shimmering with fine, high-quality tannin, detailed with salt bush, bay leaf and salted liquorice amongst dark plum, cassis, cola and green olive fruit characters. The perfume is evocative, the flavours in harmony and stretched luxuriously to a fine, trailing herb ’n’ peppery spice mix finish. An exceptional release that speaks fluently of vineyard and place, while providing immense satisfaction in the high-quality stakes division. 96 points. Mike Bennie, Halliday Wine Companion Mar 2026
This is a powerful expression from this vineyard. Black fruit, iodine, liquorice, samphire, roasted nuts, chamomile and dried roses. It’s medium to full-bodied, quite ferrous and firm, lots of gravel and grip to it, there’s almost a peaty character here, then blue and black fruit, some juicy raspberry, balanced acidity, with a saline green olive and dried herb finish of excellent length. There’s a Sagrantino sort of thing happening here, Italianate in a way, and thoroughly nourishing in another. Outstanding. 95 points. Gary Walsh, The Winefront Mar 2026
The 2024 Cabernet Sauvignon Calgardup Vineyard immediately impresses with bold blackcurrant and black olive aromas that are forceful and display a strong, muscular shape. Powerful flavours of liquorice, gravel and graphite are well matched to deep-set tannins as the wine ripples with youthful intensity. A fabulous structural finish of immense length is the icing on the cake. 96 points. Angus Hughson, Vinous Jan 2026
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2025 Corymbia ‘Rocket’s Vineyard’ Chenin Blanc RRP $36
The level of bang for buck here is ludicrous. One of Australia’s more complex, exciting textural white wines lays in the glass. Catch it in its youth for the crystalline texture, the sea spray, green almond, Pink Lady apple juice characters, citrus blossom lift, cool, slate-like mineral finish and rush of slippery texture that feels glassy as it does gently sticky. An impressive wine of detail in fruit, florals, minerality and yet one that holds attention for high-end drinkability, too. 95+ points. Mike Bennie, Halliday Wine Companion Dec 2025
Green pear, apple, a smoky almond thing, a bit saline, also some chamomile and green tea perfume. It’s crisp, has excellent texture, a quiet pear skin and almond grip, some Parmesan rind savoury stuff, with a bright, nutty and juicy finish of very good length offering a powdery grip to close. Very good. Also, quite refreshing. I think maybe the best release of this wine to date? 94 points. Gary Walsh, The Wine Front Mar 2026
Distinctive and very good. 94 points
Gary Walsh, The Winefront
2024 Corymbia ‘Rocket’s Vineyard’ Tempranillo Malbec RRP $47
Blackberry, blackcurrant, liquorice, dark chocolate, ginger biscuits, dried roses and tea. It’s medium-bodied, lots of dried herb and dark chocolate, black cherry, crisp acidity, a stony and ferrous quality, a sooty feel to tannin, with a lively finish of excellent length. Distinctive and very good. 94 points. Gary Walsh, The Winefront Sep 2025
The 2024 Tempranillo Malbec Rocket’s Vineyard has a good impact, with rich cherry, mulberry and licorice flavors providing a fleshy opening. The wine then steps up a notch in a flavorsome and unforced package, with subtle savory varietal influences and marked sinewy tannins adding depth and definition to a confident finish. An unusual blend in a hot season done well. 92 points. Angus Hughson, Vinous Jan 2026
