Vino and vinyl right medicine for Victorian Covid lockdowns

Victoria’s best-known wine region is set to make the most of winter with a festival it hopes will also boost struggling businesses.

With international tourism at a standstill, winemakers Ralph Zuccaro, right, and Stuart Dudine look forward to welcoming more domestic visitors when they host their Vino and Vinyl winter do at Six Acres cellar door as part of the third Fireside Yarra Valley festival east of Melbourne. Picture: Aaron Francis

Winemakers Ralph Zuccaro and Stuart Dudine don’t just share a love of good plonk but an adoration of quality music.

Vino and Vinyl is the name of their winter afternoon do, to be held at the Six Acres cellar door in Victoria’s renowned wine region for the third Fireside Yarra Valley festival.

The region is best known for big labels such as Chandon and Oakridge, but micro businesses such as Six Acres and Alkimi Wines hope the return of domestic tourism will start to make up for the hit to business spurred on by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The Yarra Valley is Melbourne’s winery. It’s so close … and the variety that’s out there (ranges from) someone as small as us to someone quite large. They all have something to offer,” Mr Zuccaro, 65, said.

“The landscape is going to change. International tourism is probably not going to happen for a while so we need to appeal domestically but also to Melbourne and Victorian customers who we really need to come out and support the valley,” Mr Dudine, 35, added.

About 100 visitors will join Mr Zuccaro, Mr Dudine who owns Alkimi Wines and Sally and Tom Belford who own Bobar on July 25 to discover classic varieties but some funky options too, such as a pet nat – a lightly sparkling wine where fermentation finishes in the bottle – or a “dirty savvy”.

Vinyl has always been part of the Six Acres vineyard experience and guests can expect not only to sample an eclectic collection of wines, but also records from different genres, Mr Zuccaro said.

“We probably won’t play Frank Zappa,” he said.

“But Paul Kelly, Nick Cave, Amy Winehouse. Maybe a little bit of B.B. King. Depending on the crowd and what they do, if they get a bit raucous, we will change it up.”

While Mr Zuccaro was largely sheltered from the effects of Covid-19 restrictions as 90 per cent of his business was wholesale, Mr Dudine was left with almost no income in April 2020 after the restaurants and bars he supplied to were shut down amid lockdown.

Wine Yarra Valley chief Caroline Evans said she hoped the state government would announce eased density limits this week to allow businesses who participate in the festival to maximise their capacity and recover economically after four lockdowns.

“It’s great that we are reopening but because our region is very highly visited by international and interstate visitors at the moment, where we’re doing it pretty tough with missing those people,” Ms Evans said.

“(We want) to let everybody in Victoria and nationally know that we are here and where we are back,” she said. “Anything that we can do that helps bring people out here and helps sell some more wine is positive.”

According to the latest data from the Victorian government, in the Yarra Valley and Dandenong Ranges Australian day trip visitors spent about $180m in the year ending December 2020, a decrease of 63 per cent compared with 2019.

International overnight expenditure was estimated at $11m in the year ending December 2020, a decrease of 82 per cent from the year before.

After the 2020 iteration of the two-week event was forced online due to Victoria’s second Covid-19 wave in July, this year 20 events will be hosted across the region’s wineries from July 17.