One of New South Wales’ best known and most loved annual festivals returns when the Orange Wine Festival takes over the famous cool-climate region come October. Spread from 14th to 30th October, the stacked program, celebrating 20 years of Orange as a wine-growing region, will add an additional two signature festival events along with its record 90+ satellite events, making for one of the most comprehensive regional wine festivals to date.
With Orange being just over 3 hours drive from either Sydney or Canberra, many regularly make the annual pilgrimage to a world of fresh, regional produce and wines that are channeled into a huge number of events across the city’s local vineyards, cellar doors, wine bars, whisky saloons, restaurants, cafes, and tourist spots. From the opening “Orange Wine Show Tasting” event on Friday the 14th to the epic “Wine & Food Night Market”, which is held mid-way through the festival with over 60 wine and food stalls.
“Orange is gaining a significant reputation as one of the premier ‘cool climate’ regions in Australia”, said NSW Minister for Trade, Tourism and Major Events Stuart Ayres. “The Orange Wine Festival is a vital platform for promoting the region in new national and international markets, and I encourage everyone to start planning their trip to Orange for this wonderful Regional Flagship event”.
As mentioned above, there’s a few new signature events this year, one of which is the “Finest Drops Festival Party”, held in the Highland Heritage Estate helicopter hangar on Saturday 15th October. Some of Sydney’s top DJs will be making their way to Orange to play the party along with cool-climate wine and food grazing stations. Other highlights include the “Orange Wine Festival Vino Velo Bike Ride” which has participants cycling the stunning Towac Valley with stops off at premium cellar doors, a picnic by the waterfall with lawn games at Patina Wines, and the Spring Feast at Mandagery Creek Venison Farm, an outdoor luncheon in the paddock with See Saw Wines.
To make it a bit easier (not that it’s already easy enough) for Sydneysiders to explore the festival properly, this year also brings in “The Vino Express”, which will be departing Central Station on Friday 28th October for an all-inclusive packaged festival experience (including accommodation, behind-the-scenes wine tastings, local fine-dining, and the popular “Wine in the Vines” event – a roving lunch with matching regional wines in a vine-to-wine trail).
Additional activities throughout include catching a wine and a dinner at the Orange Mountain Wines cellar door, joining wine writer Peter Bourne for a sensory Riedel Glass Tasting at Ferment, the Orange Wine Centre, and dropping in for some free tastings and discussions at the Festival HQ, Wine Central at Union Bank Wine Bar.
For more information on the full program, the festival, and Orange itself click HERE.
Images supplied and used with permission.
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