Pinot Palooza

By O.K. Glynn

Wine goes with everything that matters; good days, bad days and cheese. Even better than a glass of wine is a bottle, and the only thing that can trump that is a whole afternoon dedicated to liaising with the sinuous notes of the Pinot Noir at a full-on Pinot Noir festival.

I’m not going to lie, I choose wine based on the label: if you’re pretty, you’re coming home with me, and there is very little that I know about wine other than the fact that it is made with grapes.

Despite knowing about as much as John Snow, I can confirm that I have drank Pinot Noir and thoroughly enjoyed it; so much so, that I’m totally on board with it having it’s own evening; people are so impressed with this drop that it’s actually running for it’s fifth year in a row – dubbed Pinot Palooza, it is touring around the country (with a pitstop in NZ this year!) and hitting our fair concrete-jungle on Sunday, October 9 at Carriageworks (seriously, where else? The venue of the Contemporary Art Exhibition; I don’t care what anyone says, wine is the art of the alcohol world.)

The producer briefing begins… You know what that means #Sydney #PinotPalooza

A post shared by Pinot Palooza (@pinotpalooza) on Oct 4, 2015 at 6:27pm PDT

At $60 a ticket, you’re in for a treat to sing to every sense (even if you’re Bruce Willis. Carriageworks is old and it wouldn’t surprise me if some ghosts were hanging out sniffing the wine along with you.) Starting at 1pm there will be hours of Pinot Noir in all it’s glory, heralding from such wineries as Curly Flat, Dalrymple, Greywacke, Josef Chromy, Moondarra, Mount Difficulty and Yabby Lake, Ata Rangi, Stefano Lubiana, Shaw + Smith, Maude, Kooyong Est, Chatto, Charteris, Giant Steps, Craggy Range and Pegasus Bay.

Bottle Shop Concepts are running the event and have taken their wine-drinking very seriously, having scoured 100 wineries to bring you the absolute best of the best, teaming each drop with some stellar snacks from Bodega, Belles Hot Chicken and Yarra Valley Dairy, just to name a few.

You can bust in with the basic ticket and go nuts on the wine, or you can don some fancy clothes, your darkest sunglasses and get yourself a VIP ticket, gaining early entry, food vouchers and extra tastings. You’ll get to chat with some of the best sommeliers, so you’ll be prattling off buzz-words in no time (and actually understanding them).

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Even if, for some wild and unknown reason, you feel like the red needs to be broken up with something on the total opposite end of the spectrum, Young Henry’s of Newtown will be there to service your every desire with some boutique craft beers, giving you the chance to really switch up the pace.

It’ll be warm and it’ll be popular, but what’s better than floating around on a red wine cloud in the baby-days of the Australian Summer. Sydney is waking up from the grey winter and needs a wine to put that pep back in her step; it’s basically your duty to help her out.