Preparations for this weekend’s Margaret River Wine Region Festival are being finalised, with a number of personalities set to appear across the South West during the four-day event.
Celebrity chef and television presenter Kylie Kwong will travel from Sydney, where her restaurant Billy Kwong is based, to the Vasse Felix vineyard to co-present in a cooking demonstration with Vasse Felix executive chef Aaron Carr.
Among the events: Leeuwin Estate will hold a ‘food and wine marriage master class’ using current release wines; Watershed Wines will hold the Annual Silver Chain charity auction and dinner; Voyager Estate will run self-guided interpretive trail tours of the estate; Redgate Wines will hold a winemaker’s dinner and Variety Club auction with Andrew Forsell; and Howard Park chef Michael Forde will host an ‘intimate boardroom dinner’.
For those looking for a drink of the amber variety, Bootleg Brewery will be celebrating its 10th birthday over the weekend.
The festival will conclude with music at Palandri, with former Cruel Sea frontman Tex Perkins, Vika and Linda Bull of the Black Sorrows, and Dave Graney, due to appear.
The Ray Jordan Western Australia Guide to Wine 2004/05 was recently launched and is currently making its way to local book shelves.
The University of Western Australia is undertaking a research project into WA’s favourite variety, chardonnay. A panel of wine makers and scientists will gather to examine 33 local examples of the variety in the name of science and industry development.
On the agenda for discussion will be mapping of the Margaret River region, management, climate and soil properties and how these each impact on the fruit, flavour, and chemistry of the wine.
Cape Mentelle’s New Zealand-based brand Cloudy Bay will take part in a six-year, $NZ9 million study to be undertaken by the Marlborough Wine Research Centre into sauvignon blanc.
The study will focus on what makes the variety so distinctive in the Marlborough region, home to the Cloudy Bay vineyard.
