The Best Bit About Taste of Perth 2015 (and it wasn’t the food)

I know this post is well overdue seeing as Taste of Perth was last month but time just flies when you’re tasting wine every night right. Haha you all know what I mean!

So Taste of Perth. In 2014 I raved about how I boycotted the foodie festival due to long lines and well heck I’m a wine blogger after all – I should have been concentrating on the booze anyway. I’m sure if you read my blog often then you’re on the same wave length as me that wine is more important than food.

So now that we have that cleared up, what did I think of the 2015 festival? Unashamedly after seeing the ticket prices ($36 per person) and having just reached full mortgage repayments on our construction loan for our new house there was no way Mr. Spittoon and I could justify $72 for tickets just to spend probably double that if not more once we walked through the door. Therefore, I left it to fate. I entered nearly every single competition I could to win tickets and what do you know, I won some tickets from the lovely Barton Jones Wines (thank-you!).

The Plan of Attack

So the plan this year was to go on the Friday night to hopefully beat the crowds and lucky for us we also missed the rain that the rest of the festival goers over the weekend experienced.

I don’t know how it was the rest of the weekend, but Friday night was definitely a lot less busy than the Saturday evening session in 2014, a good thing to remember if you plan on attending Taste of Perth 2016. Which is great! This year we did eat some food, however 2 bites for $8 between Mr. Spittoon and I was not ideal and definitely didn’t help to soak up all that wine we drank. The 2 bites were wonderful, just not enough.

The rest of our Taste of Perth 2015 foodie experience was picking up some tasty treats from the lovely folk at Just In Time Gourmet to take home and enjoy in the comfort of our lounge.

Don’t get me wrong, the food is a definite highlight, but I wanted to focus on experiencing the wine side of the festival more so.

The Best Bit

By far, the best bit and the main reason I did want to go back this year was for the Grape & Grain Masterclasses. The Chardonnay Class I attended in 2014 was by far the highlight and frankly it was the ‘Create Your Own Margaret River Red’ Class which was the best bit in 2015 for me as well.

The class was run by Nigel from Evoi wines. And the aim was to embrace our inner winemaker and come up with a blend each that Nigel would then try at the end and pick his favourite.

Mr. Spittoon and I could have literally spent hours deciding on the exact proportions of Cabernet, Petit Verdot and Malbec to add to the blend – it was so much fun! Our blend didn’t win unfortunately but we did sneak a few sips before the end 🙂

As the Grape & Grain tent was so close to the live music at the event, Nigel came to speak to us all individually so he could be heard over the music. He explained to us the intricacies of each of the barrel samples and then left us up to our wicked ways.

Grape & Grain is an independent family owned wine and beer wholesaler in Perth. When choosing wines to distribute  the look for top quality wines  but also look for wines a bit out of the box and wines which showcase the passion and family behind the label.

Other points of note

Some of the other stalls which caught my eye were:

Pizzini Wines from the King Valley who specialise in Italian wine varieties. I loved their 2014 Pinot Grigio, 2014 Prosecco and 2014 Brachetto. Tasting sizes were very generous which is always nice at a festival like this (for those of us who can behave!). Plus their Brachetto Wine, Fresh Mint, Lime Wedge & Fresh Ginger Cocktail was a ripper. Loved it and not bad at 8 crowns, $8.

Millbrook Wines from Jarrahdale, WA. they had a fab 2012 Chardonnay which I couldn’t get enough of.

Barossa Valley Estate, I’m pretty sure you can guess where they’re from. Top notch service at this stand and the 2012 GSM (Grenache, Shiraz, Mourvedre) was beautiful alongside the powerful 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon.

And how could I not stop by The Heritage Champagne Bar. Mr. Spittoon and I splurged on a glass of the 2006 Piper-Heidsieck Champagne for a cringe-worthy 28 crowns, aka $28 a pop. It saddens me to this day that i drank it out of a plastic flute, but it was still lovely!

Between everything you pay at the festival + your ticket price, it does end up to be a very pricey event. I was a little bit shocked to find out that we had to buy our own tasting glasses when we walked in the door for $5.

Despite this, the atmosphere was great, the wines were fantastic and if you are a big foodie, then having all those top Perth restaurants serving up food in the one spot is perfect. Let’s see what in store for Taste of Perth 2016! For more pictures, click here.