Melbourne Food and Wine Festival goes regional

Crawl and Bite tours, High Country 

Get a taste of the High Country at one of the MFWF’s High Country Crawl and Bite tours. These intimate, moveable feasts are designed to celebrate a region’s food and drink culture, with each inviting guests on a progressive lunch date that includes appetisers, sips and snacks at a curated selection of beloved local establishments.

There are culinary crawls taking place in Milawa, Mansfield, Rutherglen, Alexandra and Beechworth (Bright is already sold out). Places are limited and tickets are selling fast.  

Village Feast, Gippsland

They say it takes a village and, when it comes to the culinary festival that will be taking over Thorpdale’s main street on the second-last weekend of November, it really does. 

A gathering of all things Gippsland, The Village Feast will bring together some of the region’s favourite taste makers for a two-day celebration of good food, fine wine, crafty spirits and one-off epicurean collabs.

Richmond’s Hector’s Deli will be slinging sausage and egg muffins from the old post office, while Alejandro Saravia, of Melbourne’s Farmer’s Daughters, will be your go-to for terrific terrines, pickles and other assorted deli items. A wine bar will be popping up in the former general store, pouring drops from local talents including William Downie and ARC Wines. Duck into the Thorpdale Bakery for a pie and some potato bread, or sit down for a local pot and a parma at The Travellers Rest, where local brewers will be doing a tap takeover. 

There will be Meet the Maker booths dotted around the village so you can get to know the region’s producers, bouquet classes where you can learn how to arrange a bunch of beautiful local blooms to take home, and even a marketplace where you can literally get a taste of the region.

And if you need a break from eating and drinking, head to the live music stage and treat your ears to the supreme sounds of local talents including Mia Wray, Dorsal Fins and Grace Cummings, or pull up a seat at the Community Table, hosted by food writer Richard Cornish, for an engaging and hands-on learning experience with admired local chefs, farmers and other guests.  

Ballarat Unlocked

Ballarat might be synonymous with gold but, these days, the city is experiencing a gold rush of a different kind.  The up-and-coming epicurean centre is fast becoming one of the state’s go-to gourmet playgrounds and, if the event line-up for the city’s first MFWF Regional Edition is anything to go by, it’s easy to see why.

There’s a garage party at Mitchell Harris Wines that will include sparkling wines, sabrage, DJ sessions and punch spiked with Larrikin Gin, as well as a globally inspired tastes menu.  

You can join distiller Chris Pratt (of Kilderkin Distillery fame, not the Marvel franchise) and Rebecca Mathews for a five-course, gin-matched banquet designed to showcase and complement the botanicals in Kilderkin’s Larrikin gins.

Enjoy a feast for all the senses at Club Eat Art, a five-part evening of fine food, live performance and interactive projections, staged across three spaces.

For a taste of nostalgia, you can’t go past Dinner at the Drive-Through. Hosted by Carboni’s Italian Kitchen, the event will bring the flavours of Italy to a former drive-through bottle-o on Eureka Street. On the delectable menu are items including fresh-made linguine cacio e pepe, woof-fired porchetta, gelato and, of course, plenty of local wine, beer and banter.  

If you’re into wine, the Wines of the West event might be the pick of the bunch, bringing some of the region’s brightest and best winemakers under one roof for a wine-tasting hour not to be missed. Included among the stellar wine-up are Latta Vino, Attwoods Wines, Charles Oliver Wines and Dave Morgan Quiet Wines.