A unique Australian wine dinner that invites guests to stomp grapes and make wine will be held in Asia for the first time this weekend.
Adelaide Hills winemaker David Bowley is taking his Urban Winery Project to Singapore after sell-out events in Sydney and Melbourne.
Almost a metric tonne of freshly picked Sauvignon Blanc grapes will be flown from the Adelaide Hills to Singapore this week ahead of the inaugural international events on Friday and Saturday nights, which are presented by small batch wine club WineMasons.
Vinteloper winery owner Mr Bowley began the Urban Winery Project in Australia’s wine capital Adelaide in 2012 with small city winemaking events at a number of venues across three vintages.
In 2015 and 2016 Bowley hosted a number of events in Melbourne and took the project to Sydney in 2017 and again last month.
UWP produces about 6000 bottles of wine at the events a year, much of which is sold back to attendees a year later.
“We’ve always tried to push the boundaries with this event and this is the ultimate – we’re airfreighting grapes handpicked in the Adelaide Hills to Singapore, meeting them on the ground and taking them to a space in one of the more cosmopolitan cities in the Asia Pacific and asking people to come and make wine with us,” Mr Bowley said.
“When we first started doing it seven years ago I wasn’t aware of anyone doing it in Australia at that time and since then others have joined the party so to speak but I don’t think anyone really does it like us.
“The other urban wineries in Australia are permanent fixtures, ours is more of a festival style where we do it once a year in different locations with a big focus on the food aspect.”
At a typical night, guests are invited to inspect, taste, and de-stem the fresh wine grapes.
They then stomp on the grapes to extract juice and basket press pre-fermented fruit.
The events are typically attended by an even split of men and women in their 30s but Bowley says the ladies are usually keener to kick off their shoes and crush the grapes.
“Also, while they are eating their main course they are served the Urban Winery Project wine that was made 12 months before so in one night they get to see a wine in three or four different stages of its life cycle,” he said.
The Sauvignon Blanc grapes heading to Singapore have been sourced from Lenswood and are expected to produce between 900 and 1000 bottles of wine.
Attendees at the $140-a-head winemaking dinner will also be served Vinteloper wines and will have the first option to buy the wine they help make when it is released in 12 months time.
“When you can offer that to people it really does close the loop in terms of understanding what goes in to making a bottle of wine,” Mr Bowley said.
“One of the main motivations for starting the Urban Winery Project in the first place was to pull back the curtain and let people see.
“By coming to this event we hope that every glass of wine people have from then on tastes a little bit better because they’ve seen what goes into it, they’ve experienced it, they’ve touched it and I think that’s a really powerful message.”