Frankland Estate was established in 1988 by Barrie Smith and Judi Cullam in the Frankland River sub-region of Western Australia's Great Southern, and is now run by their children, siblings Hunter and Elizabeth Smith. The Smith Cullam bottling, named for the founders, is a selection from the Isolation Ridge vineyard, worked organically on undulating slopes of ancient duplex soils — gravel and loam over a clay sub-soil. Fruit for this wine came from the original east-west-facing 'Winery Block' planted on Isolation Ridge in 1988. The cool 2019 growing season in the Great Southern favoured slow, even ripening, retaining natural acidity and the perfumed, spicy character that marks the site's syrah.

Hand-selected syrah was destemmed, with a portion of whole bunches typically retained, then fermented in small open vessels with regular plunging to build the wine's fine, graphite-like tannin. After pressing the wine completed malolactic fermentation and was matured in French oak, with only a restrained proportion of new barrels so that the fruit's floral, ferrous character stayed to the fore. The Smith Cullam is a barrel selection of the estate's most complete syrah parcels from Isolation Ridge, bottled to reflect site before vintage. Precise oak regime and whole-bunch percentage for this release are not published.