IN 2000, Caroline Vale was one of 30 Australian volunteers on a Duke of Edinburgh Awards Foundation trip to Nepal to carry out community work, including building schools and doing medical research.
Ms Vale had completed her Science Degree at Melbourne University and through her previous association with the Duke of Edinburgh organisation and as a Queen’s Guide volunteered for the 10-week project.
The Aussie Action Abroad organisation grew out of the expedition and is now celebrating 20 years of helping the people of Nepal.
Once back in Australia, Ms Vale studied winemaking, following in the footsteps of her father John vale, who ran the family’s winery at Balnarring.
She studied part time at Charles Sturt University, Wagga and worked with Stoniers and Tucks Ridge before becoming assistant winemaker at Blue Pyrenees Wines, Avoca. Similar winemaking roles followed at Hardy’s Wines, Clare Valley, Padthaway and Reynella.
In 2003, Ms Vale completed vintage at Domaine de Mourchon in Seguret, in France’s Rhone Valley.
At the family’s winery she specialised in sparkling wine.
The family winery completed 27 vintages in 2017 before the property was sold and the winery closed.
Ms Vale was married in 2012 and had a daughter, Elizabeth, but died from leukaemia in 2015.
The Vale family is holding a fundraising dinner to mark the two decades of Aussie Actions Abroad’s involvement in Nepal and in memory of their daughter, Caroline.
Money raised through the dinner will be used to buy materials for the group’s ongoing work in Nepal.
The three-course dinner at 7pm on Friday 18 October in the Nepean Room of Doyle’s Bridge Hotel, Mordialloc will include canapes and sparkling wine. Tickets are $100 a person or $750 for a table of eight. Mornington musician Neil Osborne will perform.
Tickets: www.trybooking.com/BEOJG
