Our Team

Peter Woods

Peter’s passion for all things rural and agriculture was inherited from his grandparents who were early settlers of Morawa in the northeastern wheatbelt in 1910 with their sons and daughters (one of which was his mother Grace). The family farming tradition was continued by the children, and Peter’s school holidays were spent on his aunt and uncle’s Darkan Farm in the South-West.

In the early sixties he took up surfing, which started his regular trips to the South-West to visit the great surf spots. Leading eventually to Peter purchasing investment properties in the Dunsborough area including his home away from home and regularly travelling to Dunsborough for business and holidays.

His younger days spent working on Darkan Farm had sown a seed, because in 1997 he began looking for a suitable farm/vineyard site. In early 1998 he inspected John and Jan Geary’s 160 acre property on Abbeys Farm Road, Yallingup. The farmhouse was named “Woodside”, which coincidentally was the name of the hospital in East Fremantle where Peter was born, a coincidence that made purchasing the property seem like fate. After careful research and due diligence for suitability to establish a vineyard on the property, it was purchased by Peter and his partners in June 1998.

Woodside Valley Estate’s commitment to both innovation and excellence has resulted in the Western Australian Department of Agriculture using our vineyard as a model to students on how it should be done, and in 2002 we became one of only twelve vineyards in Margaret River at that time to achieve Quality Assurance status.

The vineyard was planted in 1998 and 2002 saw the first vintage from Woodside Valley Estate of which approximately 85% was sold under a growers contract with the remainder of the crop going into the Woodside Valley Estate Label—The Baudin Collection of wines through contract winemaker Kevin McKay.

Apart from his interests in viticultural activities, Peter is also a shareholder, Chairman and Managing Director of national and overseas publishing companies RIC Publications Pty Ltd and Prim-Ed Publishing Pty Ltd with offices in Australia, Malaysia, Japan, UK and Ireland, and sister investment company Corpserv Pty Ltd. He has also been involved in the mining industry since 1986, and is currently a Board Member and major shareholder of Sun Resources NL, an oil and gas exploration company, and until recently a director and shareholder of Basin Minerals Limited, which was subject of a successful takeover offer by Iluka Resources Limited in August 2002.

Kevin McKay
Diploma of Agribusiness Management (Muresk College)

Chasing the good life Kevin was lured to the south with surfboard under arm. Once realising the potential of the region as a producer of premium wines he set about developing 31 hectares of vines at the Abbey Vale property. All the vines on the Abbey Vale Estate property were planted by Kevin in the early Eighties, after taking cuttings from Moss Wood, Cape Clairault, Sandalford and Happs. He also planted many other known vineyards in the district.

After conquering this challenge Kevin turned to seeking further fruit by developing 42 hectares via contract growers for Abbey Vale. The wood for the growers’ vines was taken from the Abbey Vale property, and planted under Kevin’s guidance. Coupled with this he is also called upon to provide private consulting to ultra premium grape growing properties in the region.

Realising the need to value-add, Kevin soon realised the importance of being able make wine, and turned his attention to winemaking. Kevin has worked with Phil Ryan and Jim Brayne (McWilliams) for the McWilliams Margaret River brand. To strengthen Kevin’s winemaking, Kevin engaged the services of consultant winemaker Dorham Mann (ex Houghton) in the early Nineties and he has been Kevin’s mentor ever since. Also making wine with Bob Cartwright from Leeuwin Estate when Abbey Vale had wines made at Leeuwin.

Kevin was Chief Winemaker and Vigneron at Abbey Vale until the family sold in February 2001. “My greatest achievement at Abbey Vale was the consistency of winning medals for all the wines. Last count was well over 60 medals.”

Kevin has now turned his attention to making super premium and icon wines at Forester Estate and a select few producers in the Margaret River region. He has designed and built a specialised winery to cater only for this market. “My aim is not to get too big, but to focus my attention to detail and build complexity into my wines from the ground up.” He continually maintains the emphasis on production, from grape to bottle, as a consistently super premium product. “We want our wines to consistently reflect the premium fruit grown in the Margaret River region.”

Forester Boutique Winery

The winery was built by Kevin and incorporates the best of new technology along with the proven traditional methods to ensure the best result from the premium fruit delivered.

The winery design gives the winemaker the option of ten different fermentation methods or a combination to build layers of complexity into the wine.

All red wine is juiced, concentrated and adjusted (acid, enzymes, yeast & nitrogen, etc.) prior to fermentation, then pumped into six tonne open fermenters where a number of different fermentation methods can be used, ranging from extended maceration, hand plunging, heading down boards, draining and returning, cap heating and juice chilling for extended fermentation time up to fourteen days and traditional pump over.

Once fermentation is finished the wine is pressed and racked into a selection of three different French oak types for maturing up to eighteen months or a level of wood compliment suitable of the wine.