TANIA and Jared Bray didn't know much about grapes before they bought Walkers Vineyard in 2011 - only how they tasted.
But after learning the tricks of the trade from the visionary who established the winery, Bill Walker, along with the help of a few agronomists, the couple quickly got the hang of things.
After realising nothing seemed to yield well on their patch of ironstone land, farmer Bill and his wife, Angela, decided to try something different and planted their first hectare of Shiraz wine in 1995.
Ignoring the naysayers who said he was crazy to attempt a vineyard in such a harsh climate, Bill created the most inland vineyard in Western Australia, four and a half hours south east of Perth at Lake Grace.
Spurred on by his passion for wine, over the following five years Mr Walker planted another hectare of Shiraz grapes and a hectare of Chardonnay grapes.
With the ironstone and clay giving a unique earthy tone to the wines, his efforts were rewarded in 2002, with the Walkers Hill Shiraz receiving a gold medal at the Mt Barker QANTAS wine awards.
The vineyard has won numerous awards since, including another gold medal in 2004 and a bronze medal in 2015 for its Shiraz at the Wine Show of Western Australia Awards.
Initially Mr Walker sold the vineyard to a couple in 2009 who changed its name, but in 2011 the Brays bought the property and subsequently changed the name back to Walkers Hill Vineyard.
"Bill was still coming out here most days, helping us prune and pick the grapes, right up until the year he passed away," Ms Bray said.
"He was one of those people who didn't bombard you with information, but every time he saw you, he'd give you another little piece of the puzzle.
"We knew of Bill, growing up in Lake Grace, and he had a wonderful passion for the vineyard and was a great help to us as we learnt about the winery and viticulture."
Over the past decade of owning the winery, the Brays faced their share of obstacles, with the price of water going up from 60 cents per kilolitre, when the vineyard was in its first years, to $9 per kilolitre.
"We are on commercial rates because we're not a primary producer, and we don't have any on-farm water, so water is an issue," Ms Bray said.
"Bill kept really in-depth records when he was running the place, and whether it's due to climate change or just cycles, we've noticed our summers have gotten much hotter to when he started.
"We're struggling with keeping water up to the vines to keep them going in the hotter summers, especially this year, which seems to be building up to an even hotter summer than usual.
"We probably don't put anywhere near as much water on them as what they really need."
In temperatures over 35 degrees the vines can shut down due to heat stress, with the new winery owners learning this the hard way in 2012.
"We can control the sugar levels of the berries, to a certain extent, with the amount of water we put on closer to picking time," Ms Bray said.
"But in 2012 we didn't put enough water on in January, so there were no leaves and, as a result, the sugar levels in the berries didn't come up and they didn't ripen."
Consequently, the vineyard wasn't able to produce its primary Shiraz variety that year, but fortunately there was enough flavour in the grapes to make a Rose instead.
Just like your typical cropping farm, frost can also have a devastating impact on a vineyard if it occurs at the wrong time in the harvest lifecycle.
In the first few weeks of September 2016, frost hit the Lake Grace region, affecting not only its cropping farms, but burning 90 per cent of the fruiting buds at the vineyard.
That season, instead of an average of about five to six tonnes of grapes, the vineyard yielded only 900 kilograms.
With Walkers Hill's previous processor being one of the biggest wine contractors in WA, they said the 900kg batch of grapes was too small for them to process.
After speaking to various wine makers around the State, Ms Bray made contact with Rob Wignall of Wignalls Winery, based in Albany, who said he was more than happy to take them on board.
"It's been a really great relationship ever since, as he will take our smaller batches that the bigger winemakers aren't interested in," she said.
As most innovative ideas come from adversity, the Wignalls winemaker, Michael Perkins agreed to blend the vineyard's Shiraz and Chardonnay grapes for the first time, creating Walkers Hill's inaugural Frosted Rose.
"It was very popular and sold out so quickly that we've kept making a Rose' each year," Ms Bray said.
As both the wine making process and people's palates have changed over the years, so has the vineyard owners techniques and, as a result, the flavours of their wines.
"When Bill started the vineyard he was using American oak, but red wines are now predominantly made using french oak," she said.
"In 2018 we decided to go back to American oak to make our wine a bit more unique.
"The American oak gives a nice punch to the wine, making it a bit harsher than your French oak, which typically gives the wine smooth vanilla tones and flavours.
"But each year our wines have had different tones.
"For example, our 2016 Chardonnay had aromatics and flavours of honey, whereas in 2018, to cater to the sweeter palates of some of our customers, we made our Chardonnay that little bit sweeter."
With traditional chardonnay oaked, Ms Bray said they had opted to do an unoaked version because the oak tended to mellow out the fruit flavours.
"This year it's a nice crisp white wine with lots of fruit flavours, while our red wine is a nice dry traditional peppery shiraz," she said.
Since taking ownership of the vineyard, the couple has added a deck onto the brick tasting room and recently built a large function centre, which has been booked out most of the year.
"We've had quite a few weddings and every one of them has been totally different, with each couple really making it their own," Ms Bray said.
"We do a large variety of functions including Christmas events, Christmas in July, sporting wind-ups and get togethers, birthday parties, baby showers, as well as seeding wind downs, and recently we had the Lions 50th Jubilee celebrations here, which was the biggest seated function we've ever had with 100 people.
"We spend about a week prepping for the weddings, all of which have been cocktail with about 120 people attending each one."
Buying all of their produce locally, the Brays do the catering themselves and usually get a couple of people to come in and help with the bigger functions.
With at least one function booked a week, the winery only promotes that it's open for lunch and dinner on certain days.
"First and foremost we're a function centre, but quite regularly we'll get people ringing up asking if we're open for lunch or dinner, so if we can fit it in I'll just put it up on social media that we're open for bookings," Ms Bray said.
Due to the vineyard's unique location, not much business comes from tourists who visit the area, with the winery garnering most of its support from the local community.
"Tourism wise, I didn't think that we would compete with the likes of Margaret River, Albany and Denmark, but it's a tight-knit community in Lake Grace, and word is getting out among the surrounding districts so we're also pulling support from Corrigin, Hyden, Kukerin and Newdegate as well," she said.
"We really couldn't ask for better community support."
With a population of about 600 people in Lake Grace, the owners hold a 'community pick' each year to collect all of the vineyard's grapes.
"It's divided up into two picks - we do one big pick with the Lake Grace community and then the Tarin Rock Tennis Club come out and do the Chardonnay pick," Ms Bray said.
"It takes about two hours to pick them all and they get a nice breakfast and morning tea.
"Usually about 40-50 people come out, but one year we got 80 people.
"It's really nice, because sometimes you'll be picking with somebody you don't normally socialise with, so you make those new connections."
Each year, to give thanks to the community, the winery donates to a non-profit organisation in town, as well as the Tarin Rock Tennis Club.
"For four years, we donated to St John Ambulance while they were building their new sub-centre, and this year we donated to the local fire brigade so they could get a mobile repeater for their fire truck," she said.
With Tania born and bred in Lake Grace and Jared growing up nearby on a broadacre farm in Tarin Rock, in 1994 the couple left town, vowing to never return.
But after 10 years travelling around Australia, including one year in Airlie Beach, Queensland, six years living in Kakadu, Northern Territory, and spending some time in Albany to be close to Jared's parents, they found themselves back in Lake Grace in April 2004, wanting to start a new adventure.
"We had been around Australia one and a half times by the time we got to Albany, and I realised after a while the town didn't suit me to be a stay-at-home mum," Ms Bray said.
"Our eldest, Connor, was about six months old when we moved back to Lake Grace.
"We bought a house back in town and Jared was working at Great Southern Fuels as a mechanic when the vineyard came up for sale, and we thought we'd give it a crack."
The couple's two kids, Connor, now 16 and Sara, 13 have had a unique upbringing, growing up on the 30 acre property, seven of which are under vine.
"Connor was seven when we moved out here, and he absolutely loves it because he can ride his motorbike and drive the car around, although he is on his L plates now," Ms Bray said.
"He loves being outside, working with machinery and all that sort of stuff, but if I ask him to do something in the vineyard he runs away.
"Sara is a bit of a bookworm, so she's not as outdoors as much but she comes and helps out with our functions."
With Tania's great grandfather, Billy Betham, a pioneer of Lake Grace, who came to the town in 1911 to farm, she was sentimental about the small community.
"Lake Grace has never been one to die, and there is always something new opening up or happening," Ms Bray said.
"It's a nice outlook living on the vineyard, but I think, maybe once the kids are all grown up, we might pack our bags again and go off on another adventure."