South Australia doesn’t need summer to have a good time. Drive south in August and the vines are bare but the cellar doors are full. By October the Hills are green, the festivals are running and the city has a spring energy that makes you feel like you’ve been underusing the place. The Grenache is coming. So is the Shiraz, the long lunch, the cellar door you’ve been meaning to get back to. The next few months have our state doing what it does best.
Here are some of our picks.
Eat / Drink
Adelaide Mould x Pinot Palooza
28 – 30 August
Wine and cheese is not a complicated idea, but done well it’s hard to improve on. This three-day event brings together small producers, serious cheese, and the kind of crowd that actually wants to talk about what’s in the glass. A good one to lock in before winter is fully behind us.
mouldcheese.com.au
McLaren Vale Grenache & Gourmet
18 September – 5 October
The Vale’s signature spring festival is built around Grenache – the variety that, more than any other, tells you exactly where it came from. Winemaker dinners, cellar door events and long lunches stretch across three weeks and most of the region’s best addresses.
grenacheandgourmet.com.au
Do
Royal Adelaide Show
5 – 13 September
187 years in and it still pulls a crowd. Whatever your reason for going – and everyone has a different one – the Show is one of those events that reminds you South Australia does community well.
theshow.com.au
Bay to Birdwood
18 October
More than 1,500 historic vehicles roll from West Beach through the Adelaide Hills to Birdwood, where the Finish Festival serves up Hills wines, craft beer and enough atmosphere to make a Sunday in October feel well spent.
baytobirdwood.history.sa.gov.au
See
Adelaide Film Festival
14 – 25 October
Eleven days of independent and international cinema that consistently punches above its weight. If you’ve written off the multiplex, this is where the interesting stuff lives.
adelaidefilmfestival.org
The best thing about living in SA is that this list could have been twice as long. Get out into it.
Tom Archontidis, FIFTY+SA Publisher
Follow FIFTY+SA on Instagram and Facebook, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
