MARGARET RIVER REGION 2023 VINTAGE CABERNET TASTING
On Friday 3 May, vignerons and winemakers from across the Margaret River region gathered in the Vasse Felix Art Gallery to explore the world of Margaret River Cabernet, tasting unfinished barrel samples from the 2023 vintage, generously contributed by producers throughout the region.
This year, an incredible 133 samples were shared by 44 Margaret River producers for this insightful annual tasting, which provided a wealth of invaluable insight into the 2023 vintage.
Guest speaker Ray Fokkema from Churchview Estate led the discussion, describing 2023 as a typical, cooler Margaret River vintage, with good dormancy and bud burst, minimal rain between December and March along with dry and warm conditions and no disease pressure. Overall the 2023 vintage looked promising.
The region did experience some bird pressure due to the limited amount of Marri Blossom at that time, necessitating the use of netting.
Our second guest speaker, Richard Fennessey from the Agricultural Department of WA, provided further insights into the 2023 vintage and his ongoing research and development projects. Richard shared trial wines from one fascinating project, called 'The Provenance Project' where he aims to discover relationships between site attributes and wine quality.
We extend our gratitude to everyone involved in making this event a success, it is always exciting to share the unique stories that each vintage tells and we look forward to the next one.
