Lamont’s – Swan Valley WA

This fourth generation WA winery was awarded 5 stars by James Halliday and honoured as “WA’s Best Small Winery” at the 2005 Mt Barker Wine Show. A selection of their fine wines and fortified wine are available at Wine Odyssey.

"You can exist without wine but you cannot live.” Jack Mann.

Few winemakers have contributed as much to the Western Australian wine industry as the late Jack Mann. His passion and commitment are legendary and can still be sensed today in the wines of Jack’s granddaughters, Kate and Fiona Lamont.

Jack Mann was born in Perth in 1906 and at age 15 he became apprentice to his father, George, down at Houghton Winery in the Swan Valley.

Jack worked continuously and tirelessly for fifty-one vintages at Houghton, creating along the way the legendary Houghton White Burgundy. He finally retired from Houghton in 1972, but his work with wine was far from over.

His daughter Corin and son-in-law Neil Lamont were growing currants and table grapes on their property at Millendon. Jack considered this a sacrilegious waste of good soil, and “suggested” they grew wine grapes instead: a new generation of fine winemaking began.

Jack passed on his skills to Corin and Lamont Winery launched in 1978 with a highly creditable Cabernet Sauvignon, but much better was to come.

Jack impressed on Corin a philosophy he freely shared, that nature made wine, not man.

"Winemaking is entirely a natural process. Nature is the winemaker and man, if he is skilled, gives nature the opportunity to perform to best advantage. That is the art of winemaking."

This father-daughter winemaking partnership continued and flourished until Jack’s death in 1989 at the age of 83. But his legacy continues because the torch has been passed to a fourth generation: Corin and Neil’s daughters, Kate and Fiona.

They now oversee a wine and food business that encompasses a 10,000-case winery, two cellar doors, a Perth restaurant, and a beautiful lakeside winery restaurant at Yallingup in the Margaret River.

Initially Lamont’s only used fruit grown in their native Swan Valley but since 1997 they have sourced grapes from all over Western Australia to provide a balanced portfolio of wine styles.

In 1996, Lamont’s took on a vineyard hand who was studying viticulture at Curtin University. His name was Digby Leddin. After working as cellar-hand and viticulturist, and after a stint with Concilio in Marsala, Sicily, Digby assumed full winemaking responsibilities at Lamont’s in 2002.

Lamont’s wines and profile have continued to grow in stature and at the Mt Barker Wine Show in 2005 they were thrilled to be awarded “WA’s Best Small Winemaker”.

Industry-wide recognition followed in 2008 when they finally achieved a 5-Star ranking in James Halliday’s Australian Wine Companion.

The wines and achievements of Kate and Fiona would have made grandfather Jack very proud, but ultimately he would have said the real credit lay with Mother Nature.

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