History: Sunnyhurst winery is the fulfilment of Mark Staniford’s desire to make wine, which he held since he established The Wine Mine in North Fremantle in the mid 1960’s.

Mark and Laine found Sunnyhurst in December 1999 after a two-year search for the ideal place to live and make wine. The house is a glorious 110-year-old stone and iron building with pressed tin ceilings and a magnificent view to the North over the north-facing vineyard to the Mattamattup Valley and to the West over the Blackwood River Valley.

The first wine, a Cabernet Sauvignon was made in April 2000 from grapes provided in exchange for labour. Sunnyhurst Vineyard was planted to Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petit Verdot in September of that year. The estate vineyard is dry grown (unirrigated) which, we believe, brings intensity of flavour and regional character to the wines. We purchase Riesling and Chardonnay from Boyup Brook and Shiraz from another Bridgetown Vineyard.

Initially wine was made in a double garage and sold from a counter in the corner of the building surrounded by casks, fermenters and other wine-making paraphernalia. But by 2004 it became clear that a more salubrious wine tasting area was required and a "proper" winery was needed. A purpose built winery was completed in time for the 2005 vintage.

The Winery:  All estate grown fruit is hand picked, and fed by hand in to the crusher/destemmer, after crushing, and after fermenting, in the case of the reds, the grapes are pressed in hand cranked basket presses to separate the juice form the skins and pips. White wines are fermented in refrigerated stainless steel tanks unless we are making a barrel fermented chardonnay or semillon whilst the reds are open fermented in half tonne batches.

Sunnyhurst is truly a vine to table winery. We pick our own grapes, make and bottle our wine, as well as design the lables and stick them on the bottles.  We even drink a fair bit of it ourselves!

Testing our skill: in 2004 we made a batch of sparkling shiraz base wine which has been in American oak until bottling in February 2006, we have yet to work out how to clarify the bottled wine after secondary fermentation!

in 2005 we made an experimental batch of Vintage Port using Shiraz left on the vine until it reached 16 beaume, the result is luscious and intense. Further batches of Shiraz based port were made in 2007 and 2007. We are currently setting up a solera system to blend the wines.