Urban Wine Walk – Active Drinking at its Best

If you didn’t catch my social media posts on the weekend, you missed out!! Just kidding.. I will give you a full recap here on the blog! I finally made it to one of the Urban Wine Walks in Perth. They typically sell out in what seems like minutes, so thankfully one of my organised, pre-planner friends grabbed us a couple of tickets a few months ago as soon as they were released.

The Concept of the Urban Wine Walk

The Urban Wine Walk happens around Australia (currently in Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney & Melbourne) and is what I like to call ‘active drinking’ (thanks @nomief for finally giving it a responsible name!).

It’s a self-guided wine tour in the city created by Neighbourhood Events Co. where you can try numerous wines from local and national wine brands at a number of different venues. The venues aren’t too far apart so really you can make it as active or as ‘slow’ as you’d like.

It’s a great event to get to know different bars and venues in the city, alongside tasting and finding out about new wines.

What’s Involved

A Vino-Lover ticket for the wine walk is approximately $55 per person. This includes a wrist band (a very comfy silky one mind you), a plastic tumbler glass (which is very easy to transport in a handbag), map, wine-tasting list & pencil, free tastings at each venue and special food & wine deals at the venues.

The walk runs from 12-5pm and there is the option to pre-register an hour earlier or the night before if you really want to get a head start.

At each venue you can try 3-4 wines from each producer alongside chatting to winemakers, owners and passionate oenophiles. As you can see from the below pictures, it’s not just the attendees who have a bit of fun, but also the exhibitors!

You can download the Everythere app for your own digital guide or you can just take it how it comes like we did.

Urban Wine Walk in Perth (Northbridge)

So we did the Northbridge tour, I believe there is also one in Freo for those around that way. Northbridge was nice and convenient as it just meant I could train/bus into the city to get to and from, as I knew I’d be in no state to drive by the end of the 5 hours!

So where did we go, and what did we taste?

Here was our itinerary for the day and what we uncovered:

1st Stop

First stop was Dominion League on Beaufort Street. I’m a big fan of Whicher Ridge, so it was a must that we stopped in to see Cathy & Neil the owners. I loved all 3 of the wines on taste and to be honest I couldn’t pick one as a stand out. I love how Whicher Ridge bring their ‘sensory garden’ to tastings to give you a little peek at what you can expect when you visit their winery and vineyard in the Geographe wine region.

Dominion League was a great first stop, as they had two brands exhibiting. The second was Goon Tycoons who are also a bit of fun. They were enjoying ‘branding’ everyone with their stickers – they got me on my hat (and they also got the footpath – see below)! The wine which I found super interesting here was the 2017 Red Headed Step Child Riesling which was made in a very hands-off style.

Whole juice, barrel fermented, unfiltered, unfined, unruly. Left alone in the corner of the shed to ferment; this wine has to act up to get heard.

2nd Stop

Second up was Picabar in the Perth Culture Centre area. At this stop, South Australian Chaffey Bros Wine Co were pouring their tipples in the courtyard. It was the bright Chaffey Bros sign and Dufte Punkt white blend that caught my attention. This aromatic blend is made up of Gewürztraminer, Riesling and Weißer Herold grapes from the Eden Valley. Definitely one to try if you get the chance!

3rd Stop

Next up was Baby Mammoth and Skigh Wines. This was my first time trying Skigh Wines (Margaret River) and I just happen to love Baby Mammoth, so this stop was a no brainer. We had an awesome time at Baby Mammoth, chatting with some great people and trying some fab wines. These guys were also into sticker branding and I think 10-year-old me who loved stickers came back as soon enough I had stickers on everything!

I really loved the ‘Strange Brew’ label from Skigh Wines – this included an interesting Petit Verdot and Durif! Plus they had a pretty cool Facebook Messenger bot competition going on which I found very interesting seeing as I work in the marketing industry.

We did try to make Lucky Chan’s our 4th stop, but it was so busy and we later found out the whole venue closed early – I presume because they ran out of wine and food?! It was a bit disappointing as the tasting was at their rooftop bar, which would have been lovely!

4th Stop

By this time we were getting fairly hungry so we decided to make 399 Bar our lunch stop. As part of the event, 399 were serving up Cubano Sanga’s with corn beef, cheese, pickles and mustard for $5. They were so good, that we ended up ordering 2 each!

At this stop, was another new brand for me – Gestalt Wines from South Australia. Their optical illusion like labels definitely stand out and they also had some very interesting wines on offer. They actually had their Pinot Noir slightly chilled, which went down a treat (I would have enjoyed this with my sanga’s but unfortunately the bar said they were all out of the wines by Gestalt?!).

The 2016 The Fugue was also very nice which is a white blend of Savagnin, Gewürztraminer and Petit Manseng. I’ll be looking out for more of the Gestalt wines in future!

5th Stop

Next up was Meat Candy, also in William Street. This is a super cute venue, which I want to go back to at some point so I can try their wing’s and chips!

At this stop we tried wines from South Australian Hither & Yon and WA’s Empirica by Castelli. The 2012 Sparkling Shiraz from Castelli was a delight and that Nero d’Avola from Hither & Yon was also pretty darn tasty.

6th Stop

Our last and final stop for the day was The Standard on Roe Street where Jo from Dormilona was pouring her lovely range of wines from Margaret River. It’s always a tasty pleasure drinking these wines and it made for a wonderful final stop.

Once we had finished tasting, we headed inside to the aircon to use our $5 vouchers we had been given at the start of the day to use at the venue. We thought a refreshing aperol spritz and some potato gem carbs to balance out our active day drinking was in order. And again, The Standard is another venue I can’t wait to go back to again – super cool!

All up there were 14 venues, so making it to nearly half was pretty good I reckon. We had a very laid-back, chilled approach to the day, so I reckon you could quite comfortably get to 8 or even all 14 if you’re super eager!

The next Urban Wine Walk’s aren’t too far away with Perth on February 3rd 2018, Sydney on February 10th 2018 and Brisbane on February 17th 2018. You can find out more on the Urban Wine Walk website or on their Instagram and Facebook pages.