Cheers to the return of food and wine festivals

They’ve been plagued by cancellations, but the nation’s tastiest food and wine events are finally back on the menu.

Prepare your palate, raise your glass and mark your calendar - a new year is on its way, and with it, the return of food and wine festivals across the nation.

Home cooking and takeaway have been de rigueur for almost two years, but when 2022 hits, it will be prime time to share fine fare among fellow foodies, and rediscover the culinary tourism we’ve been missing.

After being plagued by cancellation, food and wine festivals are back on the menu, with a tasty line-up for late this year and throughout 2022. Picture: iStock.

From Tasmania to the Margaret River, across capital cities, wine country and food bowl regions, excitement is fizzing as hospitality operators cook up a veritable feast of entertainment and foodie delights.

MAIN COURSE

The world-renowned Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, next March, is a main dish in the smorgasbord of upcoming events. Its signature World’s Longest Lunch seats hundreds of diners at a half-kilometre-long outdoor table, to savour local ingredients prepared by some of the state’s top chefs. A World’s Longest Brunch has been added for 2022, along with a drinks party, celebrating locally-produced tipple. “There is a huge pent-up demand,” says Anthea Loucas Bosha, CEO of Food & Drink Victoria, the not-for-profit parent company behind the festival. “People are craving to get out among it and celebrate all of the great things our beautiful city has to offer.”

Diners at a half-kilometre-long table for the 2021 World's Longest Lunch in Melbourne, part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. Covid-19 forced the cancellation of the festival’s winter program this year. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Daniel Pockett

Another gastronomic behemoth, the Good Food & Wine Show will make a comeback from June, across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. Cancelled this year, it will return with a feast of stalls, pop-up restaurants, chef demonstrations, masterclasses and tastings.

Further South, Tasmania’s Taste of Summer offers a delicious start to 2022. The week-long ticketed event unites 80 of the Apple Isle’s top eateries, breweries, distilleries and wineries. Swilling and savouring will be set off by live music, and views over the Hobart waterfront.

Wine tasting at the Good Food & Wine Show.

FRESH FLAVOURS

For an entree, the inaugural Barossa Polo, on December 3 and 4, may not strictly be a food festival, but will treat spectators to the South Australian wine region’s signature hospitality. The weekend of polo at iconic Chateau Tanunda, will be accompanied by a DJ, delectable food offerings and flowing champagne. Further ahead, A Little Bit More Barossa, next August, will be a month of long lunches, degustation dinners, masterclasses and workshops across the region. “Outside of the major events, there are Sunday sessions, night markets, cooking classes and other events most weekends - and weekdays,” says Jess Greatwich, regional tourism manager for Tourism Barossa. “It’s a moving smorgasbord of things to eat and drink - nobody comes to the Barossa and leaves feeling peckish.”

Street performers at the Stanthorpe Apple and Grape Harvest Festival, Queensland.

In Queensland, the longstanding Stanthorpe Apple and Grape Harvest Festival will farewell the summer months with barrels of messy fun. To run over 10 days from February 25, the quirky biennial event is complete with grape crushing championships, apple peeling competitions, a street carnival and long lunches. Three hours from Brisbane, Stanthorpe boasts some of the highest-altitude vineyards in Australia, with a growing reputation for alternative variety wines.

HUNGRY FOR MORE

Food critic Matt Preston, is among those hungrily awaiting the return of culinary festivals: “Events where everyone is avidly talking about, celebrating and sampling the best local food and wine … can you imagine anywhere that I’d feel more at home?”.

Food critic Matt Preston, is eagerly anticipating the next course of food and wine events. Picture:Justin Lloyd

Among his favourites is the annual Lara Food & Wine Festival in Geelong, Victoria. Returning in March after this year’s cancellation, the family-friendly one-day event of cooking demonstrations, competition and activities, takes over the picturesque lawns of heritage mansion, Pirra Homestead.

Good food and picturesque surrounds: Lara Food and Wine Festival. Picture: Mark Wilson

Along with pure sybaritic delight, booking your ticket to a foodie event comes with the feel-good factor of supporting businesses as they make their Covid recovery. “With both hospitality and tourism hit so hard by the pandemic over the last two years, the 2022 food and wine festivals are even more important to support,” Preston says. “Use them as an excuse to get out into the regions, hang with the locals and find some comestible gems to bring home - whether that’s a bottle of uniquely local gin, sexy cheese made with milk from the next paddock, or the number of a ripper little restaurant up there to share with your mates.”

SAVE THE DATE

• Tasmania’s Taste of Summer, December 28, 2021-January 3, 2022; tasteofsummer.com.au

• Stanthorpe Apple and Grape Harvest Festival, February 25-March 6, 2022; appleandgrape.org

• Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, March 12-31, 2022; melbournefoodandwine.com.au

• Lara Food & Wine Festival, March 27, 2022; larafoodandwinefestival.com.au

• Good Food and Wine Show 2022, June 3-5 (Melbourne), June 24-26 (Sydney), July 22-24 (Perth), and October 21-23 (Brisbane); goodfoodshow.com.au