Cullen Wines
Kevin John
Margaret River
2021

The producer

Doctors seemed to dominate the establishment of now-famous vineyards in Australia back in the 1960s and 70s … Lake’s Folly in the Hunter Valley, Mount Mary in the Yarra Valley, and Moss Wood and Cullen in Margaret River among the most famous. Spurred by the eminent scientist Dr John Gladstone’s advice that Margaret River was suitable for high quality wines, Dr Kevin Cullen, with his wife Diana, became one on the pioneers of the area planting grapes in 1971 as well as running cattle and sheep.

The area proved the perfect sanctuary for the complete range of Bordeaux grape varieties, and these became the core of the vineyard, with the later addition of Chardonnay. His wife succeeded him followed by their very talented winemaking daughter Vanya. Vineyards have long been certified organic and biodynamic, with the best fruit destined for red and white dedicated to the founding couple – Diana Madeline for the Cabernet blend and Kevin John for the Chardonnay – Australian classics both.

The wine

Kevin John Chardonnay saw Kevin Cullen awarded “label status” long after Diana Madeline’s Cabernet Merlot, but now the top white wine at Cullen honours the founder. The natural power of Margaret River Chardonnay is held in balance with judicious touch of new French oak. It does very well in “blind tastings” against more traditional (and expensive) rivals.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.