Consumers swarm Eveleigh wine fair

By Amy Looker

Sydney's Eveleigh Market ran its first wine and cheese focused-event on Sunday, with more than 4500 visitors sampling the wares of some of New South Wales' finest producers.

Fifty small family wineries and 10 artisan food producers from across New South Wales and ACT came together at the Redfern site to showcase their boutique wines, specialist cheeses, artisan baked breads, and olive products to the Sydney community.

The event also included a series of wine workshops hosted by Newcastle-based wine journalist and educator, Patrick Haddock, who presented classes on New South Wales wines ranging from sparkling to Chardonnay, Italian varieties and cool-climate Shiraz.

"The wineries involved were thrilled with the venue and also the response from the public – being the sheer number of people that were here at 10am to taste wine," Haddock told TheShout.

"The workshops have been at full capacity and we've been showing some great wines with excellent winemakers talking about what they're doing, showing that NSW is just as good at sparkling wines as it is at Semillon, Shiraz and a host of other varieties." [continued below]

Haddock has strong ties to the NSW wine industry and is due to open a wine bar in Newcastle in early August that will have a focus on local wines.

Eveleigh market manager, Ariana Aljinovic described the day as a true celebration of NSW wine regions and food producers.

"Today is a great way to educate consumers on the wines that are available in our state. It's tied in with Eveleigh Farmer's Market, we also do an Artisan Market, and Eveleigh Uncorked is the latest addition," explained Aljinovic.

"Our first wine and cheese fair turned out to be a wonderful day with such a stellar turnout. We achieved our goal of delivering the Sydney community a fantastic one-stop cellar door event and we look forward to doing more of the same in the near future."

Some of the wineries involved from across the state included Hungerford Hill, Logan, Philip Shaw, Lerida Estate, McWilliam's Mount Pleasant, Cupitt's Winery and Bunnamagoo Wines.