Alkoomi sees new generation of Lange-Hallett-Penniment family take the reins for 50th vintage anniversary

Nestled deep among the rolling farmland and trees of the Great Southern are a family who for three generations have been making wine in the quest to put their tiny town on the international viticulture map. Alkoomi, meaning “a place we chose” in the local Aboriginal dialect, was named by Netta Lange in 1946 when the Frankland River farm produced only grain and livestock. Wine was not part of the story until 1971, when, following a downturn in the sheep and wool market, Netta’s son Merv and his wife Judy Lange set about diversifying the farm with a previously unseen crop in the region — grapes. “One of the things that they did was plant vines and pumpkins,” granddaughter and current Alkoomi Wines manager Laura Penniment said. “They basically thought they would just treat it like a crop and sell the grapes, but when he tasted them, he said he knew straight away. “He said we aren’t selling these, we’re going to make our own wine.”’ The family planted a hectare of riesling and cabernet sauvignon, along with “a bit” of shiraz and malbec, and by 1976 bottled their first vintage. A winery followed in 1978, and by the 1990s the Langes were ferrying their wines across the State, building the brand from the ground up. In 2010, their daughter Sandy and her husband Rod took the reins and oversaw great expansion, before passing the mantle of daily operations to their own daughter, Laura, and her husband, Tim — just in time for the 50th anniversary of the first vintage. Speaking to the Advertiser from the Albany cellar door on Lower Stirling Terrace, Ms Penniment said her role at the helm of the family business would come as a shock to her teenage self. “I worked at a vineyard for my Year 10 work placement and literally hated it,” she said. “It was a lot of paperwork and not that interesting to a 16-year-old, plus, I have to say, growing up, I didn’t really pay that much attention to the fact that I grew up on a vineyard. “I knew we had grapes, and I ate the grapes, and I remember loving the smell of fermenting and cracking eggs with the winemaker, so it was always very much a part of our lives but it was just normal. “I didn’t think of it as something to do as a job, and it definitely wasn’t something that I had knowledge about.” Despite annual summer jobs spent tramping through the Alkoomi vineyard with her two sisters, it was a gap year stint at the nearby Ferngrove winery that ignited Ms Penniment’s passion for viticulture. After a few years of travel, she returned to Frankland River with a degree in agribusiness, her husband Tim, and a clear vision for the company. “I want to be able to go to a wine store in New York and someone, be like, ‘oh, we’ve got this lovely wine from Frankland’,” she said. “Tim’s vision is to make the best wine that we can, and while I agree that that’s incredibly important, and I want that too, that’s not my goal. “I want Alkoomi to put Frankland on the map, to make it a tourist destination.” “It’s my home and I just want to make other people to see how cool it is, and I want to show what we have to offer.” That dream is already bearing fruit. On a trip to Canada, Ms Hallett was humbled to find Alkoomi on the menu in the small town of Red Deer, halfway between Edmonton and Calgary. “When we visited them with our distributor, I had never seen anyone so excited, to show us our wines that they sell,” she said. “It was very humbling.” The Alkoomi story remains a true family endeavour with Ms Penniment describing her parents — and grandparents — as “super supportive” of new endeavours and always available to offer a drop of wisdom. “Even if they don’t agree with it, they’ll support us 100 per cent — plus they are also always babysitting, which is a huge help,” she said. Her mother said she is thrilled to see her daughter and son-in-law as the next generation of Alkoomi. “Each generation brings new and different perspectives and ideas, that have been implemented,” Ms Hallett said. “Wine is like fashion, in some ways and varieties go in and out of style but they always come back. “I see Laura and Tim embracing the history and see them with their experience and travels putting their flair of what they have learned to their different aspects of the business.” Three generations in, Ms Penniment said she and her husband will follow her parents’ tack, and not pressure the budding fourth generation — currently aged two years old and nine months old — to join the family business. “If that’s what they really want to do, I would 100 per cent support them in that, but I definitely wouldn’t be planting that seed and trying to force that direction,” she said. A visit to Hugel & Fils in Alsace, France and a meeting with the 12th-generation winemaker-owner confirmed this belief, with Ms Penniment saying she had “never seen someone so stressed in my life, dealing with that insane pressure”. “You have to really love it and enjoy it for it to be something that you’d want to do, because it’s really hard,” she said. “It’s a lot of work and time, so it’s like, constantly you’re on from the minute you wake up in the morning to the minute you go to sleep, and sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night remembering things that you’re going to do.” That passion remains 50 years after the first vintage, with Ms Penniment directing a revamp of the Alkoomi Icon range, re-releasing the redefined wines under new packaging. “That’s kind of exciting for us, because that’s a range that Pop started in the early 90s as the first premium wine from Frankland,” she said. She said the anniversary is an opportunity to relish in how far the family business has come, and to recognise all those behind the scenes that helped it get there. “If you’re not from here, a lot of people think that because maybe they see in lots of bottle shops, they think that we’re this huge, big business,” Ms Penniment said. “They forget that we’re actually family-run and operated, and we do most of it ourselves, with an awesome group of people behind the scenes doing all the hard work as well. “That’s what drives you more than anything, that passion that we have and the other people as well that are just as passionate about it, and treat it like it’s their home and their business too.”