Melbourne Food & Wine Festival spreads its wings

The Melbourne Food & Wine Festival has expanded its offering with a 10-day regional program offering eating and drinking right across the state of Victoria.

The festival kicks off with The Village Feast, a two-day (November 19-20) festival in the Gippsland village of Thorpdale that will feature an opening night collaboration dinner taking the team from wine-bar favourite Embla to winery restaurant Hogget; a campfire degustation from Farmer’s Daughters chef Alejandro Saravia, plus his deli, serving an all Gippsland deli menu; pop-up food outlets from chefs including interstate talent such as Danielle Alvarez and Analiese Gregory.

There will also be a celebration of Gippsland milk with That’s Amore and Gippsland Jersey; cakes by Mali Bakes; pub favourites at Art Deco watering hole The Travellers Rest Hotel; and entertainment including Mia Wray, Grace Cummings and Dorsal Fins on the main stage curated by Always Live, a new state-wide celebration of contemporary live music supported by Visit Victoria.

Early bird tickets are $32 for adults with free entry for children aged 12 and under.

“We’re thrilled to be back in regional Victoria as we continue to celebrate 30 years of the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival,” says Anthea Loucas Bosha, CEO of Food + Drink Victoria, the not-for-profit parent company behind Melbourne Food & Wine Festival.

“This program highlights the extraordinary food and drink experiences that make Victoria the best place in the world to eat and drink [a huge, contentious and very parochial statement] from our two-day takeover of Thorpdale for the Village Feast, a series of one-off dining events in Ballarat, and taking our popular Crawl and Bite tours to Victoria’s High Country.”




Other events that are part of Melbourne Food & Wine Festival’s dedicated regional program include:

· Victoria’s High Country Crawl and Bite, taking intimate groups of food lovers between a handful of great venues at a time, stopping for a bite, drink or taste at each in villages including Beechworth, Bright and Rutherglen.

· Ballarat Unlocked, with the region’s best chefs at some of the city's historic buildings in a Festival dining series.

· Signature Escapes, a series of itineraries put together in concert with producers, restaurateurs and hoteliers to showcase the best of the regions.

Tickets go on sale from Friday at mfwf.com.au.

When TV insults your intelligence and damages tourism

Fancy a few days of solitude in the remote Australian wilderness? 

Wait a minute.

You might just be murdered: perhaps by a malicious team of machine-gun wielding thugs, or maybe a group of mendacious marijuana farmers. 

I know this because I watched a TV show called Under Investigation on Channel Nine last night. 

I feel sorry for the people from Victoria's High Country Tourism, who promote this part of the world to tourists.

Here is the program formula: Take a presenter who used to be a big TV star a couple of decades ago. 

Throw in some unsolved murders. 

Add in some "experts" - a bloke who lives near where some disappearances occurred; a criminologist who has failed to solve the "crimes" previously. 

Add a bloke with a very serious face and a woman who looks like she belongs on a Keno advert.

They aim to "solve crimes and uncover new evidence".   

Instead, they rehashed a lot of old theories, threw in a few red herrings and helped trash a region's tourism appeal. 

That, basically, was Under Investigation in a nutshell.

No new suspects, precious little new insight. A lot of "High Country Hell".

An hour of commercial TV time wasted for both presenters and viewers. But lots of exposure for the alleged "experts". A bit like Married at First Sight, but less interesting. 

If you are staying away from the wilderness in north-east Victoria right now, no one can blame you. 

Homicidal lunatics, fortunately now deceased, those groups of wild men with automatic weapons firing randomly, and animals that enjoy destroying evidence. 

The Australian bush is a scary enough place without these malevolent beasts out to get you. 

It is easy to get lost and die if you don't prepare properly or suffer a medical incident, which is probably/possibly what happened to most of the missing people.

Go visit Victoria's High Country. Great wines, a range of boutique breweries. Some delightful small towns. And only a handful of maniacs wanting to chase you down and kill you.