Cullen Wines’ Vanya Cullen honoured for service with 2024 WA Wine Press Club’s Jack Mann Memorial Award

A long-serving Wilyabrup winemaker has been honoured for her dedication to the wine industry. Cullen Wines managing director Vanya Cullen was awarded the WA Wine Press Club’s 2024 Jack Mann Memorial Award for her outstanding service to the industry in Perth late last month. She said it was an honour to win. “It feels deeply good to win a hometown award from industry peers, especially as my mother won it in 1998 and I attended with her. It has family and ancestral meaning,” Ms Cullen said. “The quality, sustainability, integrity philosophy is good to have recognised as making quality wine, especially in these worrying days of climate change.” Ms Cullen accepted the award from patron and former State governor Ken Michael in front of a crowd of 400 people at the Hyatt Regency Perth. A trained soprano, she even entertained the crowd with a rendition of Reflections In A Wine Glass — written by her late parents Diana Cullen and Kevin Cullen. It is not the first award for the esteemed winemaker, who followed in the footsteps of her parents who founded Cullen Wines in 1971. She received The Australian Gourmet Traveller Magazine Winemaker of the Year award in 2000, the 2020 James Halliday Wine Companion Winemaker of the Year and the James Halliday Wine Companion Viticulturist of the Year in 2023. Her passion for wine extends beyond the vineyard, having been a judge in more than 80 national and 10 international wine shows. Ms Cullen said she had been fortunate enough to be mentored by Mr Halliday and the late Len Evans. “(I) tasted the world’s great wines in this process and understood what a great wine is and also the variety of wine you can make,” she said. “It’s important to sharpen your palate in this way — hard work though. ” Ms Cullen said her focus on sustainable practices comes from her deep love for the natural world. “We owe nature everything and she gives us back what we give her,” Ms Cullen said. “The greatest wines of the world are made from the land in a sustainable way honouring sense of place.” Wine industry stalwart John Jens congratulated Ms Cullen on her win. “Vanya is an asset to Cullen Wines, she is an asset to Margaret River and she is an asset to Western Australia,” he said.