Rutherglen Winery Walkabout 2019
A weekend-long wine festival in northeast Victoria featuring grape stomping, barrel rolling and lots of wine tasting.
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Overview
Yes, it's gotten a bit cooler — but don't be so quick to write off outdoor activities completely. There are some that are quite suited to the cooler temps. Take, for example, the Rutherglen Winery Walkabout — it's the oldest wine festival in Victoria and it's been running since 1974. It will be trotting into the Victorian country town again this year, when local wineries will get involved in a weekend of wine tastings, music, tours and general hijinks.
Before you ask, yes, there's a shuttle bus service to take you from winery to winery, as well as a regional bus to get you to Rutherglen from a nearby regional town. So you and your mates can plan a weekend that doesn't involve someone being a designated driver (and does involve lots of shiraz). There's also a wine check-in system so you don't have to lug around the bottles you buy all day.
You can buy tickets for the Saturday or Sunday or just lock in the whole weekend with a two-day pass. Tickets for the shuttle cost extra, and if you do volunteer to be the Dave, you'll get into the festival for free.
Almost 20 local wineries will be getting in on the action offering up tastings of their world-class drops, a vast selection of food and plenty of entertainment, including live music, craft markets and lawn games. There'll be plenty of other happenings going down around town, too — think farmer's markets, grape stomping and even barrel rolling down Rutherglen's High Street. With too much going on around the place to tick everything off, make sure you plan ahead — check out the event guide here to make sure you know where and when exactly you're going to line your stomach (maybe start with an egg and bacon roll at John Gehrig Wines).
Rutherglen Winery Walkabout will take place across Saturday, June 8 and Sunday, June 9. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the website.
