An estimated 25,000 Sydneysiders converged on Hyde Park South yesterday (Mar 1) for the biggest outdoor wine tasting in the city’s history.
The second annual Sydney Cellar Door kicked off NSW Wine Week with a bang, as a crowd of wine-loving locals enjoyed the weather, live entertainment and food from some of Sydney’s finest venues while sampling wines from more than 110 wineries.
The success of the day bodes well for the rest of NSW Wine Week, which will see four exclusive ‘Tour of the Regions Dinners’ in Sydney’s top restaurants and ‘Dine with NSW Wine’ — a series of special menus matched to a glass of NSW Wine for less than $50 at more than 50 of Sydney’s leading restaurants.
NSW Wine Week and Sydney Cellar Door are integral components of the NSW Wine Strategy, launched last year to encourage New South Welshman to ‘drink locally’. It aims to double distribution of NSW Wine in the state within five years and firmly establish NSW as a wine state.
Chair of the NSW Wine Strategy, Tiffany Nugan, said there was still an immense amount of work to be done.
“Sydney Cellar Door was a massive success and shows consumers are interested in learning about the diversity of NSW Wine,” she said. “But reality is NSW Wine still only accounts for 6.3 per cent of the NSW off-premise bottled wines sales. So there is still a lot of work to be done.”
“NSW Wine should be well represented on the wine lists and shelves of our state and yesterday indicates with the right support we can make that happen. We can make NSW the Wine State it should be,” she said.