Wanaka’s Ripe Wine & Food Festival has a new home
The stunning Glendhu Station will be the new home for Ripe Wine & Food Festival.
The event will take place this Saturday and showcases some of Central Otago’s world-class wine and food producers. There’ll be wine tastings, live music, demonstrations and fine fare.
This is the second time the annual festival has run, with last year’s event postponed due to the pandemic. They’ve moved from Corbridge as it’s been sold to Silverlight Studios, which is now a part of the film park development. Glendhu Station boasts panoramic lake and mountain views.
It’s set to be a cracker of a day with great weather and the long weekend to enjoy.
Festival Director Nathan White and the team have been busy over the last couple of months to pull it together and are excited for the day.
“We’re at an amazing picturesque location at Glendhu Bay, which overlooks the water,” says Nathan. “You can expect live music, all the best Central Otago wineries – we’ll also have beer and other drinks available.
"There’s also a wide range of foods to match the wines that you’ll be tasting. When we chose the vendors, we picked a variety so that everyone will have a full range of options to match with their wines, and the style of food we chose were chosen to complement these wines – they’re all more gourmet.”
In addition to great food and wine, there’s a range of master classes happening. Best-selling authors and enthusiasts of plant-based foods, Two Raw Sisters, will be there doing an organic cooking showcase. Pioneer Central Otago Winemaker, Rudi Bauer, will discuss the biodynamic and organic processes involved in making his three favourite Quartz Reef wines.
Master of Wine, Bob Campbell, will demonstrate food and wine matching, and Joelle Thomson will run a blind wine tasting workshop.
This year it’s expected that just over 2,500 people will come through Ripe and final release tickets are still available for the festival, as well as tickets for the master classes. Award-winning country-pop artist Jody Direen will headline the music acts, bringing her upbeat vibes to the stage.
Kiwi artists Dirty Money Duo will kick things off at 11am followed by internationally acclaimed artist Jackie Bristow. LA Social will take the stage in the late afternoon to end the evening on a high – playing a range of covers for everyone, so bring your dancing shoes.
“We’ve chosen the music to match the vibe. We do start off with a couple of chill artists, but then we pick up the tempo towards the end of the day and the final band is more like a singalong style. The headliner is Jodie Direen. There’ll be lots of singing along and dancing towards the end,” says Nathan.
Ripe will take place on Saturday 18 March at Glendhu Station, just a 10 minute drive from Wanaka. You can get tickets and find out more information at ripewanaka.nz
