Western Australia’s Frankland River has scored a historic breakthrough, with Ferngrove Wines’ 2023 Dragon Shiraz named Best in Show at the 2026 Decanter World Wine Awards – the first wine from the region to receive the competition’s highest accolade.
Less internationally recognized than Western Australia’s Margaret River, Frankland River is carving out a distinct identity through Shiraz, producing wines defined less by sheer power and concentration than by freshness, perfume and finesse.
The award also reflects a broader evolution in Australian fine red wine, as producers increasingly move away from the ripe, heavily extracted styles of the past in favor of elegance, precision and a clearer expression of place.
Ferngrove Claims Frankland River’s First Best in Show
Ferngrove Wines’ 2023 Dragon Shiraz received 97 points and was named Best in Show at the 2026 Decanter World Wine Awards, placing it among the competition’s highest-rated wines.
Judges tasted nearly 17,000 wines from around the world, with just 50 ultimately awarded Best in Show. That puts Ferngrove’s 2023 Dragon Shiraz among the top 0.3% of all wines entered.
The significance extends beyond Ferngrove itself. Dragon Shiraz is the first wine from Frankland River to receive the honor and the first from Western Australia outside Margaret River to be named Best in Show.
Ferngrove also collected gold and silver medals for five other wines at the 2026 competition.
Ferngrove General Manager Andrew Blythe said the result reflected both the dedication of the winery’s team and a longstanding belief in Frankland River’s ability to produce exceptional wines.
“Winning Best in Show at the Decanter World Wine Awards is undoubtedly one of the proudest moments in Ferngrove’s history,” Blythe said. “But this achievement extends far beyond Ferngrove. It belongs to generations of growers, winemakers and pioneers who believed in Frankland River and the Great Southern long before the region received the recognition it deserved.”
The award-winning Dragon Shiraz is also one of the best value reds, which carries a recommended retail price of AU$40.
A Terroir of Its Own, Not an Extension of Margaret River
The award is also drawing fresh attention to Great Southern and Frankland River, one of its best-known subregions.
Great Southern stretches across the southern reaches of Western Australia and is one of the state’s key wine-producing regions. Frankland River, located in Australia’s southwest, is among its most prominent subregions.
Its identity is markedly different from that of Western Australia’s better-known Margaret River.
While Margaret River is celebrated for its Cabernet Sauvignon and richly layered wines, Frankland River’s reds are led by Shiraz. Yet its expression of the grape is also distinct from the powerful, opulent Shiraz styles historically associated with South Australia, tending instead toward elegance, freshness and refinement.
The difference is closely tied to the region’s terroir.
Frankland River’s vineyards sit at an average elevation of about 228 meters, making it one of the higher-elevation subregions within Great Southern. The altitude encourages airflow and cooler nighttime temperatures, helping the grapes retain acidity and aromatics.
Rainfall follows a distinctly Mediterranean pattern, with most precipitation falling outside the growing season. Relatively dry conditions during ripening help control vine growth and fruit development, while winter rainfall and water retained in the soils provide moisture for the vines.
During summer, a sea breeze known as the “Albany Doctor” typically blows inland from the Southern Ocean, lowering afternoon temperatures by around 2 degrees Celsius. Despite Frankland River’s inland location, the effect helps moderate daytime temperatures and preserve acidity and aromatic freshness.
Underlying it all is the more than 2.6-billion-year-old geology of the Yilgarn Craton and soils rich in ironstone, creating a distinctive vineyard environment reflected in the purity, texture and structure of the region’s wines.
Together, these climatic, geographic and geological conditions give Frankland River an identity distinct from coastal Margaret River rather than making it simply an inland extension of its more famous neighbor.
Henry Xu, Ferngrove’s China supply chain director, describes the distinction this way: if Margaret River’s freshness comes primarily from the ocean, Frankland River’s is shaped more by the temperature difference between day and night.
“Margaret River is often described as ‘Western Australia’s Bordeaux’, partly because of its reputation for Cabernet Sauvignon and partly because of its strong maritime climate. Frankland River represents a very different expression of cool-climate viticulture,” Xu said.
“Margaret River is distinguished by the breadth, composure and evenness created by its maritime climate, while Frankland River is defined by greater diurnal variation, ironstone-gravel soils and the tension between concentration and freshness,” he added. “If Margaret River’s freshness is maritime, Frankland River’s freshness is diurnal.”
“Margaret River is distinguished by the breadth, composure and evenness created by its maritime climate, while Frankland River is defined by greater diurnal variation, ironstone-gravel soils and the tension between concentration and freshness. If Margaret River’s freshness is maritime, Frankland River’s freshness is diurnal.”
Henry Xu, Director of China Supply Chain at Ferngrove
From Imitation to Finding Its Own Voice
The award is also a milestone for a relatively young wine region whose modern viticultural history dates to 1967.
Xu believes the result reflects more than advances in winemaking technique. It is also the product of a deeper understanding of vineyards, terroir and the style of wine Frankland River is best equipped to produce.
“Frankland River’s early development took place during a period when premium Australian red wines were often judged by their concentration, structure and capacity to age,” Xu said. “Later harvesting, stronger extraction, a higher proportion of new oak and more visible winemaking were frequently regarded as markers of quality.
“Over the past 15 years, however, the fine-wine aesthetic in Western Australia has gradually evolved. We have come to understand that Frankland River’s greatest strength is not power alone, but its ability to retain floral perfume, natural acidity, spice, fine tannins and clear definition within a warm inland environment.”
That realization has changed how the wines are made, encouraging more precise decisions about harvest dates, gentler extraction, more restrained use of oak and greater emphasis on vinifying individual vineyard parcels separately.
For Xu, one of the most important advances over the past decade has been finding a balance between two extremes: avoiding the scale and weight created by excessive ripeness, extraction and oak without sacrificing fruit maturity and mid-palate depth in pursuit of lightness.
“What we seek today is: elegance without thinness, concentration without heaviness, and longevity without obvious construction,” he said.
Representing the Region — and Going Beyond Typicity
Ferngrove’s progress has already earned recognition elsewhere. In 2025, the winery was shortlisted as the Red Wine Producer of the Year by IWSC.
Dragon Shiraz, however, is regarded by the winery as perhaps the fullest expression yet of both its winemaking philosophy and Frankland River’s terroir.
The grapes for the wine come from Block 11, planted in 1998. By the 2023 vintage, the vines were about 25 years old, providing the fruit concentration, mid-palate texture and structural consistency the winery was seeking.
Compared with South Australian Shiraz, Xu argues, Dragon’s difference is not simply a question of whether the wine is lighter or fuller-bodied. More important is the role acidity plays in the wine and the way its aromas and flavors are expressed.
Judges praised the wine as “refined, delicate, pure” and a “poised midweight,” while highlighting its floral character, red fruit, texture, balanced acidity and long finish.
Xu pointed to another detail from Decanter’s coverage. A Barossa Shiraz with the same 14.5% alcohol level was described as “big and bold,” while Dragon was characterized by its floral aromas, red fruit, refinement and midweight profile.
“It demonstrates that identical alcohol levels do not produce identical styles,” Xu said. “The perception of body and balance is ultimately determined by climate, site, fruit composition and winemaking decisions.”
For Xu, Dragon is unmistakably Frankland River in character, but its concentration, texture, length and overall completeness allow it to go beyond regional typicity alone.
Dragon Shiraz Takes Its Name From Frankland River’s Natural Landscape
Despite its name, Ferngrove Dragon Shiraz has nothing to do with the Chinese dragon.
Instead, it takes its name from the Dragon Orchid, a native plant found in southwestern Western Australia. Ferngrove’s broader Orchid Collection, well known in Australia, is similarly inspired by the region’s native orchids.
Xu said these orchids can be extremely difficult to grow outside their natural habitat. Their seeds depend on specific mycorrhizal fungi to germinate, while flowering and reproduction often rely on particular insects for pollination.
A wild orchid, therefore, represents much more than a single flower. It is the visible expression of an entire ecological network encompassing soil, climate, fungi, insects and native vegetation.
For Ferngrove, that interconnectedness also offers a way of thinking about wine and terroir. More broadly, the winery sees the native landscape of Great Southern as an important part of its identity.
Xu believes the natural environment offers the winery three distinct advantages.
The first is differentiation.
“The global market does not lack high-quality Shiraz, but not every Shiraz comes from a place this remote, ancient and biologically diverse,” he said.
“Native orchids, ironstone-gravel soils, river valleys, indigenous forests, the Stirling Range and expansive night skies with almost no light pollution mean that Frankland River is more than a geographical name on a wine label. It is a place that can be seen, imagined and remembered.”
The second is credibility.
“Words such as purity, perfume, natural acidity and elegance cannot be empty marketing language,” Xu said. “In Frankland River, they can be connected to warm days, cool nights, a dry ripening season, ancient low-fertility soils and relatively healthy vineyard conditions.
“When consumers encounter Dragon’s floral perfume, red fruit, clear acidity and fine structure, the character of the wine reinforces the story of the place from which it comes.”
The third is experience.
“Wine is fundamentally a product of place, but if consumers have never seen that place, the regional name can remain abstract,” Xu said. “Once they have stood on the ironstone gravel, seen the native orchids and vineyards, felt the temperature fall after sunset and tasted the wine in its place of origin, the wine is no longer simply a brand. It becomes part of a specific memory.
“That experience is especially valuable for media, buyers, opinion leaders and serious wine lovers.”
For decades, Frankland River’s remoteness has been one of the obstacles to gaining greater international recognition. Xu believes the same isolation can now become an advantage.
“Frankland River’s isolation once made it difficult to discover; today, that same isolation makes it difficult to imitate,” he said.
Frankland River’s isolation once made it difficult to discover; today, that same isolation makes it difficult to imitate.
Henry Xu
“The fragrance of good wine may travel from the end of a deep lane. Our task now is to use great wine, honest stories and authentic regional experiences to guide people all the way to the end of ours.”
Discover more from Vino Joy News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
