Wine
Byron and Harold a Great Southern Jewel
Byron and Harold is one of Western Australia’s most formidable partnerships, shining bright amongst even the most renowned Margaret River wineries with a 5 star rating from the much respected wine reviewer James Halliday. A relatively young winery founded in 2012 by Paul Byron and Harold (Ralph) Dunning, they source their grapes from the Margaret River and Great Southern wine regions with an aim to produce high quality wines, with flavour and provenance that Australian wine lovers really want to drink.
Margaret River and Great Southern Wine Region
The environment of Byron and Harold’s winery is ideal for crafting truly sensational wines with deep, rich soils combined with the cool climate, due to their Southerly latitudes and strong influence of the surrounding oceans on their vineyards. These conditions are excellent for slower ripening and in turn result in fruit that has more intense flavours, more acidity and better balance which combine to make wines of flavour, intensity and elegance, and which beautifully match a wide range of foods.
Winemaker Rory Parks
Introducing Rory Parks, who comes with a wealth of industry experience, including a recent role working for Frank Tate within which he was responsible for producing a broad cross range of wines on a commercial scale of over 500,000 cases.
Rory has carved himself a new role at Byron and Harold’s across all areas of viticulture, winemaking and production. We sat down to chat with Rory about his interest in agriculture and love of wine.
Q&A with Rory Parks
How did you get into wine?
I loved horticulture, then worked in a vineyard and decided I wanted to pursue viticulture. It was a combined degree (grape growing/winemaking) and I found winemaking so interesting and challenging that I chose this over viticulture.
What do you love about wine?
Winemaking is complex, I feel I am always learning more.
What’s your favourite go-to wine for drinking?
MR Cabernet, ticks all the boxes for me!
What would be a special one of yours that you would open when friends come over?
We recently bottled the 2020 Partners Great Southern Riesling, absolute ripper of a wine. I look forward to sharing this now and up to 10 years down the track
What do you like about your region? What are the people like?
I love the rawness of the coastline. The people I work with make my job much easier.
If you had to describe your winery or wines to people have never tried it before what would you say?
We nurture our wines from vineyard to bottle, we capture regional and varietal character and focus on quality. The final package punches above its weight, value for money!
What are you goals for the brand in the future?
Stay focused on making wines that are a legacy to such a great region.
What’s a wine you’ve produced that your most proud of and why?
Many and most. It takes a lot of effort to make wine and most of this is done during harvest, you only get one time to do it right.
When you need to relax and unwind and get away from the wine world, what do you do?
I like to head to the beach and watch the sunset.
If you could go anywhere for a holiday where would it be and what would you drink there?
I’d like to go back to Chile with the family, chase some point breaks. Plenty of affordable quality wine to choose from!