Melbourne Food and Wine Festival

Launched in 1993, the annual Melbourne Food and Wine Festival is one of Victoria’s hallmark events. Each March the festival celebrates Melbourne and Victoria’s vibrant food and wine culture. Melbourne Food and Wine Festival will celebrate its 21st year in 2013.

Operating on a not-for-profit basis, the festival’s charter is to promote the quality produce, talent and lifestyle of Melbourne and Victoria, and to reinforce Melbourne as the food and wine capital of Australia. Since its beginnings with a small program of events, the festival has grown to become known for iconic events including Langham Melbourne MasterClass, World’s Longest Lunch and Cellar Door at Southgate.

The festival is managed by a board of management and is supported by a small team who are responsible for the coordination of its iconic events, in close collaboration with Victoria’s food and wine industry.

20th Year Celebrations 2012

The 20th Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, presented by Bank of Melbourne, celebrated its 20th year over 20 spectacular days, 2 – 21 March.

A Riverside Opening Weekend saw food lovers young and old flock to the river’s edge in their thousands for more than 30 events staged along Melbourne’s Yarra River and Docklands. The Festival launch also saw the opening of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival Greenhouse by Joost, a temporary eco-restaurant erected solely for the 20 days of the Festival.

From 9 – 11 March, the Festival’s annual gastronomy program including Langham Melbourne MasterClass weekend, reached new heights. Thirty-one Michelin stars graced the 20th year program and more than 100 chefs, producers, winemakers, brewers, sommeliers and cocktail aficionados came together in Melbourne from all corners of the globe.

2012 international chefs and wine personalities included Rene Redzepi (Denmark), Brett Graham (UK), Massimo Bottura (Italy), Corey Lee (USA), Stevie Parle (UK), David Chang (USA), Telmo Rodriguez (Spain), Allen Meadows (USA) and Virginie Taupenot-Daniel (France).

2012 Australian talent included Peter Gilmore, Ben Shewry, Darren Purchese, Dan Hunter, Matt Skinner, Luke Burgess, Max Allen and James Halliday AM.

History

The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival commenced in 1993 with a simple program of 12 events. Since its inception it has grown annually, the Festival attracts food and wine experts from across the world, including world-renowned chefs and winemakers, growers, purveyors, authors, food and wine commentators and critics to present alongside some of Australia's best.

Celebrity food critic Matt Preston was previously the festival’s sole creative director, the 2009 Melbourne Food and Wine Festival being his last.

Melbourne Food and Wine Festival 2011

The 19th Melbourne Food and Wine Festival attracted more than 350,000 fun-loving foodies across more than 250 events over 11 delicious days.

The Festival was bookended by two hallmark events:

• On the first day almost 4,500 lunching revelers sat down to 26 World’s Longest Lunches held simultaneously across Victoria. The Melbourne lunch saw 10,000 broad beans, 1,800 cherry tomatoes and more than 200 kg of veal consumed;

• The last weekend of the Festival saw 2,600-plus food and wine lovers join more than 100 of the globe’s biggest and brightest chefs and wine presenters for Langham Melbourne MasterClass.

2011 International talent included: Nigella Lawson (UK), Elena Arzak (Spain), Roy Choi(USA), Margaret Xu (Hong Kong), Pedra Miguel Schiaffino (Peru), Atul Kochhar (UK), Rachel Allen (Ireland), Telmo Rodriguez (Spain), Zakary Pelaccio (USA), Jean-Guillaume Prats (France), Chris Salans (Indonesia), Warren Gibson (NZ), Thorsten Schmidt (Denmark), Anna Hansen (UK), Brett Crittenden (UK), Bompas & Parr (UK), Angela Hartnett (UK), Alexa Johnston (NZ), Hisako Ogita (Japan)

2011 Australian talent included: Stephanie Alexander, Maggie Beer, Will Studd, Gabriel Gaté, George Calombaris, Mary Calombaris, Ben Shewry, Philippe Mouchel, Anna Gare, Jude Blereau, Paris Cutler, Cath Claringbold, Rosa Mitchell, Anthony Ross, Sally Wise, Alla Wolf–Tasker, Adrian Richardson

Melbourne Food and Wine Festival 2010

In 2010, the Langham Melbourne MasterClass line-up includes chefs David Chang (Momofuku, New York), Massimo Bottura (Osteria Francescana, Modena, Italy) and Claude Bosi (Hibiscus, London), and winemaker Gaia Gaja (Angelo Gaja’s daughter).

Beyond Langham Melbourne MasterClass, the festival's hallmark World’s Longest Lunch celebrated Melbourne’s Chinese heritage and the return of Heat Beads Hawkers’ Market to Queen Victoria Market, featuring tasting plates from a dozen top Asian restaurants. Simultaneous to the World’s Longest Lunch in Melbourne, the community of Marysville hosted one of 19 Regional World’s Longest Lunches one year on from the Black Saturday bushfires. The event formed part of the festival’s program of more than 70 regional events.^[1]

The festival also grew and installed an urban food-producing garden – ‘Metlink Edible Garden’ – in Melbourne’s City Square, exploring the food city dwellers can grow in their suburban backyards and the produce strengths of Victoria’s regional ‘backyard’.

Melbourne Food and Wine Festival 2009

In 2009, the Festival hosted international culinary luminaries who numbered 30 Michelin stars among them, including The Fat Duck’s Heston Blumenthal (3 stars), The French Laundry’s Thomas Keller (7 stars) and Noma’s Rene Redzepi (2 stars), as well as world-class winemakers such as the Rhone Valley’s Michel Chapoutier and Champagne’s Sophie and Pierre Larmandier.

Recognition

The Festival continues to receive both local and international acclaim. Recent domestic award wins include the 2010 RACV Victorian Tourism Awards “Major Festivals and Events" (Hall of Fame), Melbourne Airport 2008 and 2009 Victorian Tourism Awards ^[2] in the category of ‘Major Festivals and Events’ and 2008 Melbourne Awards in the category of ‘Community Division – Contribution to Profile’; international award wins include 2008 International Festival and Events Awards Gold for ‘Best Festival Program’.

Testimonials

On Melbourne:

"Melbourne reminds me why I do what I do, why I enjoy all this food-related stuff." Chef Heston Blumenthal, The Fat Duck (Bray, UK) ^[3]

"I’d rather eat in Melbourne than Paris." US chef, author and television personality Anthony Bourdain

"Melbourne is the foodiest city in Australia. We are all food-mad, we have the best produce, the best coffee, the best cocktails, the best ethnic eating, and the best home cooks... Every great country has one city that is its foodie heart, its ‘stomach’. In France, it is Lyons, home to the bouchons, women-led bistros. In Italy, it is Bologna, home to pasta, prosciutto, parmigiano. In Australia, it is Melbourne." Jill Dupleix, Melbourne Food and Wine Festival Creative Director – Global

On Melbourne Food and Wine Festival:

"The Chicago Tribune named this particular festival as one of the five things you should do before you die." Chef Damien Pignolet, Bistro Moncur (Sydney, Australia)

"For a piece de resistance in a city obsessed with food, little beats the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival." Global travel guide, Frommer’s (who in 2009 published the festival among its 300 Unmissable Events & Festivals Around The World^[4] ).

"The Festival is what the Victorian public is all about, food, family fun. It’s my favourite time of year." Chef Shane Delia, Maha Bar & Grill (Melbourne, Australia) and business partner to George Calombaris

"Melbourne Food and Wine Festival is a real part of the Victorian community because... it’s inclusive and broad based, offers diversity." Chef Christine Mansfield, Universal (Sydney, Australia)

"Frankly I’ve never seen a festival so genuinely embraced by such a diverse audience. Food has the capacity to engage and link people and the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival delivers that sense of engagement in spades – from high end haute cuisine to local events in small rural communities." Chef Alla Wolf-Tasker, Lake House (Daylesford, Victoria)

References

1. ^ Official Site
2. ^ Victorian Tourism Awards
3. ^ Australian Gourmet Traveller
4. ^ Frommer's What's on When

External links

• Melbourne Food and Wine Festival website