The Swan Valley Celebrates the End of Vintage 2013

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The Swan Valley Winemakers and Table Grape growers joined with over a 140 local business operators, to celebrate the End of Vintage in the Swan Valley. Lamont’s Winery provided the perfect setting, with guests enjoying what was a very balmy evening.
Corin Lamont welcomed guests to Lamont’s and spoke of the Swan Valley family and the true sense of community there is living and working together in such a wonderful environment.
Upper Reach winemaker Derek Pearse delivered the End of Vintage speech; he said our early to mid-growing season was quite mild with not much really hot weather. We had nearly 25mm of rain in early to mid-December, which created spring like conditions almost up to Christmas.
Following Christmas we experienced quite an extreme heat wave that also saw high humidity. pretty unpleasant conditions for humans but the high humidity tempered the heat stress in the vines. I’ve noticed this year that generally the vines have remained greener and exhibited less signs of stress than recent years.
Picking this year began pretty much about normal time, if not a little later than the previous years.
Generally, harvesting for sparkling base kicked off in about the third week of January, with most of the whites off by the middle February.
Reds followed straight on and picking continued through to about mid-March. We had a great early break to summer this year with substantial rains in mid-March. Fortunately I think most wineries had got all their fruit of by this point so it didn’t cause any problems.
The unwooded whites that we now have in tank getting ready for bottling are looking really good, with Verdelho a standout.
Derek went on to say that the Swan Valley has once again delivered an almost perfect vintage season and consumers will be treated to an exceptional final product when they next visit the Swan Valley.
Allison Kundid, secretary of the Table Grape Growers Association spoke on behalf of the Table Grape growers in the Swan Valley and said it had been a successful season with excellent quality fruit and good weather conditions.
Fiona Lamont provided an end of harvest feast for the guests with salt and pepper squid, chicken herb and lemon aranchini, duck and cognac parfaits, Cevapcici and delectable lemon curd cakes and chocolate brownies.
The End of Vintage celebration guests enjoyed the opportunity to relax after a very busy few months with a glass or two of the Swan Valleys finest wines and locally produced beers.
All agreed it is the one evening of the year that all Swan Valley, winemakers, grape grower’s business owners, friends and family members meet together to celebrate the  harvest season and friendships that have been forged by working together in the Valley.

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