Open-air wine and food festival returns

PREPARE your taste buds, because the region’s finest wines are coming to Rosalind Park this month for the Strategem Bendigo Winemakers Festival.

The Saturday, 17 April day has sold out, with the family day on Sunday selling fast.

Bendigo Winegrowers Association president Wes Vine said this is one wine festival you don’t want to miss.

The Sunday event is structured as a day for everyone with handcrafted wines from the Bendigo region, as well as vendors with regionally-sourced food and a full program of live music from local musicians,” he said.

“Our winemakers are looking forward to welcoming everyone back after being forced to postpone the whole event last year.”

Viniculturist Ken Gilchrist, who co-owns GilGraves Wine with his wife Kaye Graves in Axedale, said they can’t wait to show off their latest drops.

“We’ll have our viognier, our light red which is called the carbonic shiraz and our field blend,” he said.

“We’re really looking forward to it, last year of course we had to cancel it at the last moment.

“We’re veery keen to get out there and show our wines again.”

Mr Gilchrist said the festival is great for winemakers like him that don’t have a cellar door.

There’s probably about seven or eight in the Winegrowers Association that don’t have cellar doors,” he said.

“It’s a very good opportunity to show our wines to members of the public that might not otherwise be aware of our wines.”

GilGraves Wine operates organically and prides themselves on producing low-intervention wines.

“Our wine is made with as little intervention as possible,” Mr Gilchrest said.

“In the winemaking process, we use natural yeast and nothing is added to the wine except a little bit of sulphur prior to bubbling.”

“We use old oak barrels instead of new barrels, so you don’t get the taste of the wood, you’re in fact tasting the fruit rather than something else.”

Mr Gilchrist is a former lawyer, who, after a health scare 10 years ago, found time with his wife to start making wine.

“I just decided I wanted to do something else, so this really became the opportunity,” he said.

Since joining the wine industry, Mr Gilchrist said they have established good relationships across the region and deliver their wines themselves through Central Victoria, Ballarat and Geelong.

“We just like to have a relationship with the people we’re supplying, and we’ve met some really great people,” he said.

“Life is not a dress rehearsal; you just have to get on with it.”

The Strategem Bendigo Winemakers Festival is sure to sell out, head to bendigowine.org.au for last minute tickets.