Cold, dark and thrilling: Tasmania celebrates Off Season

Look let's be honest. Tasmania's winter is long, dark and cold.

Australians are hard-wired to chase the sun during the cooler months, but during the Off Season, Tourism Tasmania aims to lure visitors into the bleak darkness.

Tourism Tasmania's new Off Season campaign is now live and will ask visitors to become winter people celebrating cool, starry nights, warm log fires. whisky straight from the barrel and truffles fresh from the earth.

Throw in fluffy wildlife. And even fluffier doonas. And festivals like Dark Mofo that stir the soul.

Tasmania is about as far away from global chaos as you can get. 

Throw in arts, culture, Tasmanian food and drink and swimming in the nude (above). What more could you want? 

"Tasmania is well positioned as a safe, trusted and highly regarded destination, which is important in uncertain times," says Tourism Tamania CEO Sarah Kingston Clark.

Many events at Dark Mofo have sold out, and artistic director Chris Twite says: ‘We’re staggered by the support we've seen for this year's Dark Mofo so far.

"Seeing people so eager to lock in tickets and embrace the cold here in Tasmania is tremendous. Tickets are still available to some amazing shows, but you better be quick.’

Offers and events are now bookable for the Off Season period: May1-August 31. 

Visit https://www.discovertasmania.com.au/off-season/ or see at darkmofo.net.au

Australians have a continuing love affair with Burgundy

Australian wine lovers can’t get enough of fine Burgundies with with sales volumes up 13.3% and value up 26.1% in 2025, bringing the market close to record levels.

The Bourgogne Wine Board will continue its three-year communications campaign in Australia with the second chapter of the ‘Take a Closer Look’ campaign: inviting trade, media, and consumers to deepen their exploration of Bourgogne wines.

Building on a first series of events in Sydney in year one, Melbourne is in the spotlight for 2026 as the campaign encourages Australians to venture further off the beaten path, experience Bourgogne wines differently, and uncover the diversity that exists within and beyond the region’s most familiar names. 

Take a Closer Look is billed as an invitation to reconnect with “the shared foundations of the Bourgogne wine range: emotion, experience, terroir, know-how and authenticity”.

Through tastings, trade activations, consumer events and more, the second year of the campaign creates opportunities to engage with a new generation of committed winegrowers and their iconic wines. 

The focus is on producers that are "reshaping perceptions of Bourgogne while remaining deeply anchored in their places of origin".

Australia is Bourgogne’s 14th largest export market by volume (17th by value). 

Renewed growth is driven primarily by Crémant de Bourgogne (up more than 7% in volume and up 11% in value), alongside strong performance from white wines overall (up nearly 16% in volume and 4.3% in value). 

Chablis continues to stand out, reaching double-record levels with growth of 23.6% in volume and 22.4% in value.

At the same time, Village appellations from the Côte Chalonnaise and Mâconnais have doubled their export volumes (Villages from the Mâconnais was up by 110% in volume compared to 2024, and white wines from the Côte Chalonnaise up by 168%), while Mâcon wines are up 43% in volume.

“With the second year of Take a Closer Look, our ambition is to go deeper - to highlight the diversity of Bourgogne wines and show how accessible, expressive and relevant they are today," says Anne Moreau, president of the Bourgogne Wine Board's Communication Commission. 

The Take a Closer Look campaign will offer a trade tasting and  masterclass in Melbourne on June 2, a trade-only webinar training session in late July and the second edition of Chablis Week: a promotion of Chablis wines across select Merivale venues (date TBC). 

Anyone for a glass of Philippines wine?

Anyone for a glass of wine from the Philippines?

Like Indonesia, China and other unlikely Asian nations, the Philippines has a nascent industry, Minda News reports.

What began as a hobby in 2016 has grown into a promising start-up venture with a home-grown winemaker set to start selling wines made from locally grown grapes at a family-owned vineyard in Barangay Tacunan, Davao.

Jennifer Taglucop, one of the owners of the Taglucop Estate Vineyard & Winery, said the family plans to sell red and white wines to local and foreign tourists visiting their four-hectare vineyard.

She said the family aimed at world-class quality beverages that the Philippines could take pride in. Which might prove easier said than done. 

As owners of a travel agency, she and her husband, lawyer Ferdinand, often travel abroad. During their trips, they made it a point to visit vineyards in the United States, Europe, Australia, and even Thailand.

Seeing several Filipinos visiting the vineyards abroad inspired the couple to establish their own in Davao, so that Filipino travellers would no longer have to travel overseas “just to see grapes.”

The family began growing grapes in 2016 and has since experimented with different varieties to determine which ones would thrive best in Davao’s climate.

Taglucop said her family currently cultivates shiraz, moldova, cabernet sauvignon, and moscato.

Her husband learned winemaking in the US, while her eldest son studied viticulture and oenology at the University of Adelaide in Australia.

She said the wines they have produced are currently aging in barrels stored in their cellar in Tacunan, where a wine museum is being built to educate visitors on winemaking.

Indigenous winemaking traditions in the Philippines dates back to before the colonisation of the islands by the Spanish in the 16th century.

They include wines fermented from palm sap, rice, sugar cane and honey, as well as fruit wines.

Cool event to showcase cool-climate wines

Lovers of cool-climate wines might want to put Piers & Pinots into their calendar. 

 
Twelve producers from the Mornington Peninsula will be showcased at the immersive afternoon event on May 2. 

The venue will be Blairgowrie Yacht Squadron and offers the chance to meet some of the talented winemakers behind some famous labels, offering insights into how the region’s maritime influences from Western Port, Port Phillip Bay and Bass Strait define the local wines. 

There will be over 40 wines to taste, along with a charcuterie and cheese station. 

Detailed tasting notes will be provided and there will also be a live acoustic singer-songwriter performance (somewhat distracting I would have thought). 

The event will run from 2pm-5pm and tickets are $120 per person (includes GST, plus booking fee)

Participating wineries are Baillieu, Dexter, Elgee Park Wines, Foxey’s Hangout, Handpicked Wines, Kyberd Hills, Ocean Eight, Portsea Estate, Pt Leo Estate, Rahona Valley, Stonier and Yal Yal Estate.

See www.mpwine.com.au

Why tourism is booming in Spain

Spain is enjoying a tourism boom despite global uncertainty. 

Tourism officials and analysts expect an uptick in demand despite issues in the Middle East, travel industry news hub Travel Mole reports.

 
Some travellers, particularly from Europe, are reconsidering long-haul trips to the Middle East, and, by extension, to Asia. 

And as oil prices rise amid Gulf tensions, airfares - especially for long-haul routes - are expected to increase. This dynamic tends to favour short- and medium-haul destinations in Europe. 

Spain and cities like Madrid (above) and Barcelona, is set to benefit directly from this shift, particularly in key source markets such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. 

The country, seen as a safe, stable, and easily accessible destination, is well placed to capture redirected demand. 

Spain finished 2025 with 97 million foreign arrivals, official government data shows: up 3.5% from 2024. That made it was the second most-visited country in the world behind France.

It is targeting over 10 million visitors in 2026.

New restaurant is a tribute to a legend

 

Mietta O'Donnell was a legendary Melbourne restaurateur, who is fondly remember a quarter of a century after her death.

Mietta's was an conic restaurant much loved by the the city's movers and shakers, and O'Donnell was  also an influential figure in the arts and cultural world.

Now a new restaurant named in her honour: Miettas, has opened as a fine dining destination at The Queenscliff Hotel on the Ballarine Peninsula, where she once oversaw the property when it was Mietta's Queenscliff in the 1970s.

With a kitchen brigade led by executive chef Salvatore Giorgio, Miettas aims to establish itself as a destination restaurant, with a one-seating-per-service model "designed to create a relaxed and elevated experience". 

Giorgio, former owner and chef of Bar Taralli, has built "a strong reputation for honest, flavour-driven cooking grounded in southern Italian tradition", the local tourism authority reports. The chef has worked at kitchens including Marnong Estate, Scopri, and Bar Bambi.

The menu includes hand-crafted pasta, local seafood and premium meats with an Italian accent. 

There are two degustation menus for $115 and $135 per person, as well as vegetarian and Vegan options.

See thequeenscliffhotel.com.au