City Wine 2017 - 5 Can't Be Missed Parts

It’s currently 8:30am on Saturday morning and I am currently sipping on a glass of aspro thanks to a ‘slight’ headache. It’s probably not the best way to start a weekend, but hey I had a pretty darn good night last night. What happened last night you ask? Well it was the 4th year the absolutely fun wine and food festival, ‘City Wine‘ came to town.

The festival is on every year around June and takes place at the Urban Orchard, right beside the cultural centre and Perth central train station. As I work in the city, the super convenient location of the event means it’s a must-do on a Friday night and then I always try to get my blog post up prior to the Saturday evening session, just in case some of you guys are going.

Before I get stuck into some of the 2017 highlights for me, I’d like to say a big thanks to CMS Events for inviting Mr. Spittoon and I along, alongside giving away 3 double passes to Travelling Corkscrew readers on Facebook. I did happen to bump into one of the winners last night, it was great to see she was having a ball!

Unfortunately I didn’t get around to every stand and try EVERY wine – which is probably a good thing as I am sure my headache would be a lot worse. However from those that I visited and tasted at, these were my highlights:

1. Mulled Wine from Happs

Thanks to being on the Wine and Food Events WA email subscription list I had a heads up that Happs were going to have mulled wine on offer. Initially since the day was so beautiful yesterday I thought I probably wouldn’t want a warm drink, but as the evening darkened the chill came along with it! The lovely Sue was manning the Happs stall and after trying through the wines I thought it was a good time to give the mulled wine a go and it was gorgeously delicious – a nice level of spice and definitely a winter warmer. Mr. Spittoon, is not a huge fan of mulled wine so instead he had a glass of the ‘East of Alice Red’ which is a blend of Grenache, Graciano & Tinta Cao – a lovely smooth, easy-drinking red wine from Happs’s Indigenous Series. The labels on this series of wines are absolutely gorgeous. Make sure you check them out! And also you can buy a bottle of the East of Alice Red (which is actually the wine in their mulled wine) that comes with a little ‘mulled wine starter pack’ – such a cute touch!

PS: They are also selling the ‘if you can read this bring me wine’ socks for $15 – which I bought without hesitation and I’ll no doubt be spamming my social media accounts with in the next few days! Plus you can get them from the Flying Fish Cove stand too!

2. Pisco from Harmans Estate

After following all the Harmans Pisco controversey in the news it was definitely on my must-try list for the event. FYI prior to trying the Pisco make sure you try the Harmans Estate 2013 Pinot Noir sparkling bubbles – it’s a beauty! So what is Pisco you ask? it’s a wine spirit made from a variety of grapes basically. I guess you could say it’s a brandy, that is particularly made in Chile and Peru. We firstly had it in a cocktail at the Harmans Estate cocktail stand. Mr. Spittoon had it with tonic ($10) and I had a Pisco Sour ($15), which we both agreed was absolutely delicious. The Pisco Sour had Pisco Black blended with lemon juice and egg whites. Later that evening after trying a few more wines we bumped into the oh so lovely Harmans Estate yet again and had a few shots of straight Pisco – it was a lovely way to end the evening, thank you!

3. Loaded Fries from Las Empanadas

It would be irresponsible of us not to eat when trying so many wines and drinks so after making our way halfway through the festival we came across the Las Empanadas stand where we had the most amazing loaded fries! And that’s not just the wine talking! These loaded fries are a twist on ‘salchipapas’, the classic Peruvian street food dish. It’s a box full of goodness really; extremely crispy beer battered chips, sweet potato chips, chorizo, sausage, salad greens and Peruvian/Japanese sauces. You know what? I could really do with another box of them right this minute. They went down super well with our cocktails and the live music. A must eat!

4. VinoFood Chardonnay Chilli Salsa

Moving from the food, to the wine infused food with VinoFood! This range of gourmet wine-y delicacies comes to us from the lovely people at The Lakehouse in Denmark. Alongside their fabulous wine range they also have VinoFood and a range of spa and beauty products with a grape-tastic twist. Their wine tasting and VinoFood stands are right beside eachother, so make sure you check out both. The newly released 2016 Denmark Riesling is an absolute stunner! After you try the wine, and if you’re a chilli lover, like myself, then make sure you try the Chardonnay Chilli Salsa – it definitely has a kick, but my oh my it is delectable!

5. Catching up with all the old favourites

What I really love about City Wine is that it’s actually very easy to get around all the stalls and try one or two wines from each one. We managed to nearly get around them all except for a couple which we taste from regularly anyway like Castelli Estate, Bunn, Frog Choir and Neilson Estate in the Swan Valley. It’s good to say hi to everyone and of course taste the new releases and ‘re-taste’ a few to jog my memory of how good they are. For instance;

Swan Valley’s Lancaster Estate were debuting their brand new (as in, it was delivered to their cellar door yesterday) ‘Lexi’ which is a moscato-style wine alongside serving up some very tasty sounding cocktails
Clown Fish had their 96 Halliday Cowaramup Reserve Cab Sauv and Chardonnay’s on taste
Settlers Ridge had their Asthma, allergy free and low preservative wine for taste (make sure to try the Chenin & Sauv Blanc blend, or the blanc de blanc as they like to call it!)
Churchview Estate had their 2013 St Johns Brut sparkling wine made from 100% Chenin Blanc
Grab a cabernato from the Howling Wolves stand
Stop by Fifth Estate for a sip of their delectable Chardonnay and Sparkling Shiraz
Redgate’s bubbles and Chardonnay are a must-try!
Stop by 3 Drops to say hi to Jo and John and get some of their rose in you (I am eagerly awaiting the release of their 2017 rose which is going to be 100% Nebbiolo!)
Pop along to see the lovely folk at Talisman who have been killing it with the awards recently, their 2013 Gabrielle Chardonnay is insanely good
Windance and their Chenin Blanc alongside the reds are absolute winners!
Grace Farm have a few new releases to try, I actually really enjoyed the 2016 SBS
Flying Fish Cove are pouring their delectable ‘Boards Off Shore’ rose
Juniper are full of laughs with their ‘Wine O’Clock’ sign 😉
And if you’re a cider lover, don’t forget to stop by the Swan Valley’s Funk Cider – I love these guys!

And if you are an avo and spicy fiend like myself, make sure you try the Mexican Avocado Magherita from The Cocktail Lab – Mr. Spittoon insisted we had to get a cocktail from these guys after they played one of the tunes from Star Wars!

All up it was an absolutely fabulous night, I wish I could have ate and tasted more – but alas there’s always next year, or tonight…

(But for now, I am now going to get some wine flu help from this post)