Held over eight days, from 26th April until 3rd May and including over 80 public events, this year’s festival is promising to be the most interactive yet and will showcase the best South Australia has to offer including events both in the city or more intimate events in the Adelaide Hills, Barossa, KangarooIsland, Coonawarra, Limestone Coast, Fleurieu Peninsula and Riverland. The festival will bring together some of the best of the State’s produce with celebrity chefs from around the world and some of the biggest names in the Australian food industry, but will also offer a wealth of events for food and wine lovers of all ages and skill levels.
This years festival will be Ian Parmenter’s last, but he has been with Tasting Australia since it’s genesis and when I chatted with him today he was keen to stress the significant international impact this festival has on food professionals in the United States, the United Kingdom and Asia – especially Singapore and, increasingly, Japan. He states there is nothing like it anywhere else in the world and certainly no comparable food festival which attracts the same level of media attention or food professional involvement. Up to 150 members of national and international media are invited, all of whom pay their own fares, and as many as 300-400 local and overseas food professionals will also make their way to Adelaide, absorb as much as possible of our splendid food, wine and culinary know-how, then go home to spread the word – the kind of priceless PR for South Australian food and food producers that money just cannot buy.
But the real beauty of Tasting Australia is it’s accessibility – there really is something here for every one and most especially for those of us who have a genuine interest in great food and where it comes from. Selecting from the range of hands-on workshops with skilled artisans, wine and beer appreciation sessions, trade events, tours, exhibitions, celebrity dinners, “Word of Mouth” sessions with food and travel authors and the free cooking sessions for the children is going to be the most difficult part for most of us! The official 16 page Tasting Australia program will be available in The Advertiser this Saturday and the new look website went live today, so I suggest you get your apron on and start circling your selections – it’s going to be an amazing eight days!
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What a fabulous festival. It would be an amazing experience to be there. I’m sure you will love it and have a very busy but rewarding eight days.
What a great event to look forward to Amanda. SA has some great produce in both food and wine. Wish I could make the trip for it. Maybe next year.
I watched Ian Parmenter for years on the ABC – great to hear of him again !!
It looks like a cracker of a program! 🙂
Oh Amanda, so envious. I attended Tasting Australia as a guest and part of the media contingent on four occasions in years past and it is such a wonderful event! Wish I lived closer! Happy tasting!
Fantastic, Id love to go to this festival 1 year. There is so much great produce in SA
What an awesome sounding event! I hope you have a fantastic time!
Have a great time which I’m sure you will! Wish I could be there, the festival sounds amazing.
How great to see both Ian Parmenter and Simon Bryant – I was great fans of both when they were on tv.. 🙂
It sounds like a great food festival!
I loved watching Ian Parmenter, there was a series featuring him on Irish tv years ago, he was great fun, good to hear that he is still involved in the food scene, even if this is his last food fest.
What a wonderful event!!! My fiance’s Mum lives in Adelaide so I might have to see if we can arrange to be in town then.
As a post script, I brought Ian Parmenter to Canberra once, a long time ago. He was very entertaining… he told us about cooking salmon in a hotel room with an iron!!!
This sounds like such a great event! Wish I could be there 🙂