On the weekend I went on the Urban Wine Walk in Brisbane. For once a wine event came to Brisbane and I was around to go! I find these great events often don’t make their way up to us, so I was right on those tickets as soon as they were available. The great thing about the Urban Wine Walk is that it is held across Australia, so I thought it would be worth telling you about it so you can check it out in your own city!
The premise of the Urban Wine Walk is simply brilliant. I really wish I’d thought of it. Basically, instead of heading out on a wine tour of a particular wine region, the Urban Wine Walk brings the wines to you! This is perfect in a place like Brisbane where we are starved for wine regions to visit nearby. But it’s also great for those with wine regions nearby that want to try something different.
Exploring Brisbane and drinking wine
On the day, you get a wristband, a wine glass and a map. You can then walk across your city to different bars that are hosting the event. Each bar has a different winery in them that are serving up a couple of wines for tasting. At the Brisbane event, there was a total of 14 venues each offering the tastings and a special menu for the day. They were all close by too so you didn’t walk far between tastings. It is a great way to explore your city whilst also exploring great new wines.
I had the best time trying all the different wines on the Urban Wine Walk. I tried so many wines from wineries that I’ve never tried before. It was such a great day out, and I enjoyed it so much I thought I’d highlight some of my favourites from the event. These wineries are from all around Australia so you can check them out for yourself without attending this year’s walk. I also made a video to show some of the highlights:
Meadowbank Wines
Probably my favourite winery from the event was Meadowbank Wines. This was our first stop so we really started on a high. We didn’t buy too much wine on the day because in Brisbane you can’t take the wine with you, you usually have to order it. But we loved the wine so much here that we ordered some the following day. And when you order the wine when you’re sober you know it’s good.
Meadowbank Wines are from the Derwent Valley in Tasmania, making me think again that I need to get down there. I hadn’t heard of this winery before but I’m glad I have now because the wines were incredible! We tried the Riesling, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir at the Urban Wine Walk. I honestly couldn’t fault any of them. They were fresh, flavourful and well balanced. The Chardonnay also wasn’t super buttery but had enough there to keep my partner happy. The highlight for me was the Pinot Noir which I could have easily kept drinking all day!
You can buy Meadowbank Wines online from their website if you want to give them a go. They are a little more than I would normally spend on a bottle, but for such delicious wines, it was worth it! And I mean we ended up buying 6 bottles so that in itself speaks volumes of how much we loved these wines.
Topper’s Mountain Wines
The next winery was Topper’s Mountain, which was at a bar a little out of the way from the rest of the wine walk. I was questioning whether we should bother going there, but my partner was adamant that we get through all the venues on the walk (we did in the end if you were wondering). So we ended up getting to this cute little bar and there we found Topper’s Mountain Wines. We ended up spending ages there because it was so interesting hearing about their winery and wines.
Topper’s Mountain Wines is located in New England, which is in New South Wales just out of Armadale. Honestly I would have never known about this region but apparently, there are a few wineries up there, and wine production here dates back to the early settlers. So I guess I need to add it to my places to go in Australia so I can check it out! The climate in this area is alpine with many of the wineries above 1000m. So they have a pretty unique cool climate growing region for Australia. Topper’s Mountain specialises in experimenting with all sorts of grape varieties, particularly those from Europe. This is what interested me most about them as they were talking about trying all these different grapes, testing and learning, and trying again until they got something really interesting.
The wines they had on tasting at the Urban Wine Walk were really interesting and delicious. One of my favourites was the Pet-Nat Tempranillo as I’ve only had Pet-Nat once before. It was dark red in colour and had a lot of flavour to it. But all their wines were absolutely delicious, and I was glad we made the effort to walk a little further to try them!
Konpira Maru Wines
One of my other favourites from the walk was Konpira Maru Wines. They were set up in a brewery so I was a little sceptical at first, but these wines absolutely blew me away. They were so unusual and absolutely delicious, and we had a great chat to them about their story and the story behind their unusual wines. We also got to enjoy some great food here along with the wines, so it was definitely one of the highlights of the walk as a whole.
Konpira Maru Wines are all about minimal intervention. They focus on making great wines and having a lot of fun along the way, as they think the wine industry takes itself too seriously. You can see why I loved them so much!
One of the most interesting wines we tried from them was called the Gravy. The team got an order of grapes that arrived overripe because of the weather. The supplier was going to take them back and throw them out, so they decided instead of letting them go to waste they would produce something different. So they turned these overripe cabernet grapes into a wine that is semi-sweet and delicious.
Honestly, all of the wines from Konpira Maru were interesting and truly offered something different. If you are a lover of natural and minimal intervention wines, I would definitely check these guys out!
Macquariedale Wines
Macquariedale Wines offered something interesting as well with their organic and biodynamic wines from the Hunter Valley. I am not normally the biggest fan of these types of wines. But I realise now this is just because I haven’t tried the right ones before. These wines were absolutely delicious and made me realise that maybe I need to drink these sorts of wines more often.
However, one of the highlights for me was from one of the people helping them out on the day. It was a Pinot Noir from Gippsland that we managed to pick up in the bottle store. Her label is called Berini and she is all about experimenting with different flavours in a wine. We loved this Pinot Noir so much that my partner bought it then and there!
The final word on the Urban Wine Walk
These are just a couple of the wineries that I loved from the Urban Wine Walk. There were so many more than were also great, but the ones above were the standouts. They offered something I’d never tried before. Something new and different. I think this is why I loved the Urban Wine Walk so much. I really got to experience some new wines and have a great time along the way.
The other wineries that were there were also great as always. I really enjoyed tasting Symphony Hills wines from the Granite Belt once more, and Torbreck’s wines were great as per usual. Really there wasn’t a winery that I didn’t enjoy anything from, so you really couldn’t go wrong!
The Urban Wine Walk is hosted across Australia, so be sure to check it out to see when it will be held in your state. I can definitely recommend it as a fun day out where you’ll taste some really interesting wines!