Since the first commercial vines were planted here in the ‘60s, wine has become one of the Margaret River Region’s central narratives.
To experience vintage is to hold a stethoscope to the industry’s heartbeat: you feel it all. The racing pulse of early, early mornings readying for a long day with secateurs. The steady building rhythm as vintage teams work up and down the vines. Connection between communities is created over these weeks of picking: the influx of casual workers from Europe, Asia, Great Britain, and the Americas to our region aids in ensuring fruit makes it safely from vineyard to vat.
But it does more than that: every pair of hands contributes to production of wine now widely recognised in industry and consumer circles as some of the most consistently high standard wine produced anywhere in the world. That those hands come from all corners of the globe to join with ours every vintage, is the completion of a circle that speaks to the connective and emotive spirit of the drink they help to produce.
Emptying vines. Filling fruit buckets. Mixed languages. Panting vineyard dogs. These weeks of vintage allow no rest for the pickers, the viticulturists and the winemakers. No doubt that knock-off glass of Margaret River Region Chardonnay will taste great when it’s all bottled and capped.
Feel the beat of a Margaret River grape harvest at wineries Pierro and Howard Park, through the lens of photographer Mark Boskell of Elements Margaret River and Freedom Garvey.
