Joe (Guiseppe) Sorgiovanni settled on this site in 1939  and founded Harvey Fresh in 1986

Like many Europeans Giuseppe Sorgiovanni (Joe) travelled from his small village of Caulonia in Calabria, Italy in 1928 to start a new life in Australia.  Joseph settled on a small farm in Third Street Harvey where he toiled the fertile soils of the Harvey River flat lands known as a prime horticulture region.

 
Giuseppe's family joined forces with his wifes family, the Scolaro's.  His large plantation of orange trees led to the development of Harvey Fresh, a local producer of fruit juices and dairy products which now exports across the globe.  The company has progressed from its early days of orange juice to producing and packaging a full range of products.  These include fresh and long-life juices, along with fresh, flavoured and long life milk, cheese, yoghurt and cream.

In November 1999 a new greenfield winery site was developed opposite the Harvey Fresh compound due to the enormous growth of viticulture within the region, ready for the first 2000 vintage. Thus Harvey River Bridge Estate was born.

Harvey River Bridge Estate has a selective group of small growers that supply fruit for their expanding range of labels which include Billy Goat Hill Estate, Joseph River Estate, and Stone Gully.  The principle varieties used are Chardonnay, Semillon, Verdelho, Cabernet, Shiraz and Merlot.  More recently, a premium cider range has been added to our extensive wine portfolio, utilising the availability of our fresh fruit juice varieties.

Our range of wines reflect the unique climate and soil conditions of Western Australia.  The South West region enjoys a classic climate of warm sunny days and cool, crisp evenings due to its close proximity to the Indian Ocean. The Mediterranean climate together with the gravelly loam soils and altitude from the Darling Ranges, provide a cool ripening season producing fruit of excellent quality.  The harvesting season for this region is performed from late February to end of April with machine and hand picking used in most vineyards, to ensure the best quality of grapes are selected for our wines.

Harvey River Bridge Estate is a 1,000 Tonne capacity winery with 60% of it's annual production used for domestic labels, 10% for Kosher wines and the balance allocated to export.  The winery has 42 stainless steel tanks ranging from 6,000 litres to 40,000 litres, which are fitted with computer controlled refrigerated systems, monitoring fermentation on whites between 13° - 15°C, and reds to 25°C.   Our current holding bulk capacity is around 1 million litres.  Inner staves are used in tanks with American and French barriques used in Malo Lactic Fermentation followed by aging over long periods combine to offer the different characteristics in our wines.