You arrive at Rockcliffe the way most people arrive in Scotsdale: down a quiet road lined with vines, karri trees crowding the edges of the property, the Southern Ocean somewhere just out of sight but never quite out of mind. There's no grand entrance or polished tasting theatre, this is a working winery that happens to welcome guests, and a cellar door built around a simple idea: good wine, good food, and as light a footprint as possible in the making of both.
The tasting itself
Wine tasting at Rockcliffe is unhurried and free. You’ll have plenty of time to work through a broad range of chardonnay, pinot noir, shiraz, malbec, mourvèdre, cabernet sauvignon and more, guided by staff who know the vineyard blocks each wine came from. It's the kind of tasting where questions are welcome and nobody's rushing you to a gift shop. The focus, as it always has been, stays on what's in the glass.
Lunch, cooked by the Sun
Ask what's for lunch and the answer usually starts with a sustaining, and sustainable, pizza. The ovens at Rockcliffe run on solar power, drawing on energy harvested right there on the property to fire the dough, rather than relying purely on grid power or bottled gas. It's a fair summary of how the whole operation works: if the sun is doing the ripening in the vineyard, it might as well be doing some of the cooking too.
Hand-cut chips and cheese boards round out the menu, meant to be shared over a long lunch outdoors, with the vines and the granite garden as the view. On Fridays and Saturdays, the kitchen stretches into dinner service as well, for anyone happy to make an evening of it.
Gelato and fudge, made the slow way
No visit to Rockcliffe is complete without saving room for dessert, and the gelato in particular has its own unique story. Owner Steve Hall travelled to Italy to learn the traditional method, and it's made in-house that way still, a slower, more involved process than most cellar doors bother with, but one that shows in the texture. The fudge gets the same treatment, prepared on site rather than trucked in. What ties both together is a simple house rule: locally sourced ingredients, no artificial flavours.
Rockcliffe’s holistic approach to sustainability
The solar pizza ovens turn out to be one visible piece of a broader approach. Across the property, Rockcliffe leans on rainwater collection and solar energy to reduce its reliance on mains resources, and extends that thinking to ethical, lower-impact packaging choices for the wine itself. It's a philosophy that traces back to the property's geologist-owner, whose interest in the ancient granite beneath the vineyard was never purely aesthetic. Understanding a place at that level, down to four-billion-year-old rock, tends to come with a certain respect for not wrecking it in the meantime.
Wandering the Granite Garden
Between courses, or before you head off, take a slow walk through the Granite Garden, a collection of ancient boulders gathered from the local area, remnants of the same Albany-Fraser geology that shapes the wine itself. It's an easy, low-key kind of attraction: a chance to stand next to rock older than complex life on Earth while your gelato melts slightly in the WA sun. Kids tend to treat it as a climbing frame. Adults tend to linger longer than they expect to.
What a day here actually looks like
Put it all together and a visit to Rockcliffe rarely feels like a single "tasting." It's more of a loosely structured afternoon: work through a flight of wines, order a solar-fired pizza, let the kids run the lawn or the granite boulders, finish with a scoop of gelato made the long way, and leave with a bottle or two under your arm. Pets are welcome, groups are catered for with advance notice, and there's no pressure to move through it quickly. The sustainability rarely takes centre stage; it works more like the quiet logic running underneath everything else, the same way the granite runs underneath the vines.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What are Rockcliffe's opening hours?
The cellar door is open seven days a week from 11am to 5pm, with the kitchen open for dinner on Fridays and Saturdays. Visits outside standard hours can be arranged by appointment.
Is there a cost to taste the wines?
Tasting is free for individuals and small groups. Groups of 10 or more are asked to book ahead and are charged a small per-head tasting fee.
What food is available at the cellar door?
Solar-fired pizzas, platters, chips and cheese boards are served from midday, alongside homemade gelato and fudge for dessert. Weekend evenings add a full dinner service.
What does "solar-powered pizza" actually mean?
The pizza ovens are fired using solar energy generated on the property, reducing reliance on grid power as part of Rockcliffe's broader approach to sustainability.
Are the gelato and fudge really made on site?
Yes. The gelato is made using a traditional Italian method, and both the gelato and fudge are prepared in-house using locally sourced ingredients with no artificial flavours.
Is Rockcliffe suitable for families and pets?
Yes. The cellar door is both family and pet-friendly, with lawn space for kids to play and a granite garden that doubles as an informal outdoor attraction.
Do I need to book in advance?
Bookings aren't required for casual visits or small groups, but they're recommended for lunch or dinner groups of six or more, and necessary for tasting groups of eight or more.
What other sustainable practices does Rockcliffe follow?
Beyond solar-powered cooking, the winery uses rainwater collection and ethical packaging choices as part of a broader, low-key commitment to reducing its environmental footprint.
