Matters of good Taste
Back in the 1980s, it seemed all you could expect from your local council were clean water, decent roads and paths, and regular garbage collection. One Tasmanian council stood apart from the rest – Hobart's City Council. In 1988, it introduced the State's iconic Taste of Tasmania.
Almost 40 years later, the week-long event continues to go from strength to strength.
Now called the Taste of Summer Festival, it's become a fixture on the Nipaluna/Hobart waterfront, showcasing the best of Tasmania's culture, community and cool climate produce. That of course includes some of the State's best food and wine.
Every mouthful tells a story of Tasmania's people, places and practices we value.
Saturday 27 December marks the start of the next iteration of Taste of Summer. Organisers have once again pulled out all stops to ensure their seven-day program of activities will be suitably memorable for the State's largest and most significant food and wine event.
Taste of Summer operates each day from 11:00am and concludes at 12:00 midnight on Saturday 3 January 2026.
The program includes live music across multiple stages, roaming performance and plenty of family-friendly entertainment.
Tickets went on sale last month. Demand for them has already been strong, according to Taste of Summer general manager Katherine Dean. Last year's event welcomed more than 10,000 visitors each day.
Lovers of food-friendly, cool climate Tasmanian wines will find plenty of great sparkling, Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir in particular to fill their festival glasses. A significant number of wines on offer will be very hard to find beyond Hobart, let alone beyond the island State.
Participating producers this year include Atom Wines, Aunt Alice Wines, Beautiful Isle, Clover Hill, Common Wine, Derwent Estate, Glaetzer-Dixon Family Winemakers, Haddow+Dineen, L'Appel Wines, Meadowbank, Ponting Wines, Rivulet Wines, Sonnen Wine and Torch Bearer Wines.
In addition to supporting their own festival stalls, Aunt Alice Wines, Glaetzer-Dixon Family Winemakers and Rivulet Wines are teaming up for the first time to participate in the Taste of Summer's Winemaker Series.
Six hour-long sessions have been scheduled for every day of the event. The starting times are: 12:30pm, 1:30pm, 2:30pm, 3:30pm, 4:40pm and 5:30pm.
Each producer will bring to the table their own personal winemaking philosophies, revealing what it is about Tasmania and its unique soils and growing conditions that makes it one of the world's most exciting cool climate wine regions.
These intimate tasting experiences cost $30 per session and are guaranteed to provide opportunities for personal interactions between visitors and their winemaker host.
Alice Davidson made the first vintage of Aunt Alice in South Australia's Limestone Coast in 2016. She launched her own label as a side hustle to her day job as chief winemaker at Norfolk Rise. In 2022, Davidson and her family moved to the Huon Valley to take on the challenge of making clean, fresh, 'fun wines' in an old apple shed on the edge of one of the world's great natural wildernesses.
It's not all beer and skittles down at Franklin. Davidson's very smart 2023 Aunt Alice Night Sky Pinot Noir picked up several silver medals in its limited wine show appearances last year.
She's not short on ideas when it comes to growing and making topnotch Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Prior to completing her degree in viticulture and winemaking – and later becoming a respected judge on the national wine show circuit – Davidson was a curious youngster from the Adelaide Hills who studied and worked as a geologist before switching careers.
In 2022 – and again in 2024 – Alice Davidson was a shortlisted finalist in Australia's Young Gun of Wine. The initiative was created back in 2007 by Melbourne wine communicator Rory Kent and aims to promote wine labels and winemakers on the rise.
Generations of Glaezters have grown or made wine in South Australia's renowned Barossa Valley since 1888. One of them saw the light and moved to Tasmania in 2005 to take up the challenge of producing warm-hearted wines from distinctly cool climate origins.
Nick Glaetzer spent seven years working alongside the redoubtable Andrew Hood at Hood Wines – subsequently Frogmore Creek Wines – before he and his wife Sally (née Dixon) created Glaetzer-Dixon Family Winemakers in 2008.
In less than three years, Glaetzer was awarded the Wine Australia Medal and named Young Winemaker of the Year 2011 by Gourmet Traveller Wine magazine.
In September 2011, his 2010 Mon Père Shiraz won the prestigious Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy at the Royal Melbourne Wine Show. It was the first time in the trophy's 50-year history that its judges had selected a Tasmanian producer to carry away Australia's most celebrated prize for red wines up to two years in age.
The wine made from Shiraz grapes sourced from vineyards in the Tamar Valley (Northern Tasmania) and the Coal River Valley (Southern Tasmania). It was fermented in half-tonne open fermenters, hand-plunged and matured in new and seasoned French oak barriques. A work of patience and expertise.
These days, Glaetzer busies himself with operating Tasmania's only urban vineyard cellar door and winery. Everything about the venture is cool – its winemaker; its previous use (a former Esky ice factory); its evocative tasting room interior.
Yes. There are vines to mollycoddle as well. Glaetzer-Dixon Family Winemakers has 8ha of Pinot Noir, Shiraz and Riesling planted at Tea Tree, just outside Hobart in the Coal River Valley.
Atom Wines' Richard Jones grew up on an historic farming property in the Jordan River Valley, where seven generations of his family have laboured since the 1860s. He was bitten by the wine bug somewhere around 2016, when he began working alongside his brother Andrew and renowned Tasmanian viticulturist Marty Smith to establish Invercarron Vineyard. It's located at Broadmarsh at the southern end of the Jordan Valley, 35km north of Hobart.
After spending time at Peak Viticulture with Mark Hoey – another very highly respected Tasmanian viticulturist – Jones launched Atom Wines in 2021 with his wife Rachael. The Atom portfolio includes sparkling pét-nat and still table wines crafted from small batches of Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir and Syrah (Shiraz).
The skilfully blended Entropic White – a Pinot Gris/Riesling mix comprising barely 100 dozen bottles – has developed a strong following over four vintages.
Atom Wines are made under contract at Ghost Rock Wines, near Devonport. Contract winemakers Justin Arnold and Sierra Blair are charged with producing small batches of user-friendly wines with minimal intervention.
Three Tasmanian wine producers. Myriad stories to tell.
The Taste of Summer is only 100 days away.
For further information or to subscribe for early bird access to tickets, go to: www.tasteofsummer.com.au
Tasmanian residents can purchase a Locals Taste Pass for just $32. The heavily discounted ticket provides priority entry for every day of the festival (excluding the New Year's Eve Party). Valid proof of residency will be required at entry.
Last page update: 26 May 2026