Look Local - Meet The Makers at Howard Park Wines


Look Local - Meet The Makers at Howard Park Wines

Linneys is showcasing some of our favourite West Australian crafters, creatives and artisans in a series called Meet The Makers. This week, we sat down with Richard Burch, Director and Export Manager of Howard Park Wines to discuss his wine business. 

My name is Richard Burch and I’m a part of the second-generation family member that makes Howard Park Wines, a 34-year-old pioneering winery from Margaret River and the Great Southern. My primary role is Export Manager but I have worked in every single department of the wine business ranging from cellar door, winemaking, vineyard, warehouse, sales and marketing. I have been working for Howard Park full time for the last 9 years, with 6 of those years in Melbourne where I was building our business on the east coast and studying my MBA at Monash University.

As a wine business, we are one of the earliest adopters of multi-regional fruit sourcing and have two vineyards in Margaret River and two vineyards in the Great Southern. This has allowed us to craft a broad range of wines from two of the top growing regions in Western Australia.

The property and cellar door in Cowaramup is absolutely beautiful and I encourage everyone to pop down and check it out. We have a huge range of wines to taste, including wines form MR and GS but also Champagne and range of French red burgundies.

Our winemaking philosophy is all about making the best wine possible that reflects the terroir out of the best sites in South-Western Australia. Over 34 years we have developed an intimate and detailed understanding of the top growing sites in the South West. This has led us to develop a broad range of wines from Margaret River and the Great Southern, including Riesling, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir and Méthode Traditionelle sparkling wine. Our Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon is world class.

Most of our wines are sold in Australia to some great restaurants and bottle shops but we also sell our wines to over 24 countries world-wide.

To ensure the highest level of quality in our own products, we manage the production from end-to-end. This involves growing our own grapes from our 4 vineyards, to hand picking the fruit, to hand sorting the berries, nurturing the wine through the fermentation process, bottling the wine and final hand selling the wine to our customers.

We are very passionate about our products and we think it’s important for us to control every process of the quality of the wine making to sure that we deliver something special that we are proud to put our name on.

The best way to experience our wines is to come to our Cellar Door on the Leston Vineyard in Wilyabrup, Margaret River. We have a beautiful modern Cellar Door which was built with a meticulous attention to Feng Shui design. The orientation, location and design of the building was the brainchild of my mother and owner of Howard Park, Amy Burch, influenced by her Chinese Singaporean heritage. If you can’t get done to Margaret River, all our wines are available online via our website and we deliver Australia-wide. You can also find our wines at a number of great independent bottle shops across the Perth metro area.

For more information visit https://www.howardparkwines.com.au/