Australia's biggest wine festival

The annual Barossa Vintage Festival is Australia’s largest and longest running wine festival, with more than 100 events and activities spreading over a whole week between April 7 –15.

This year the event is celebrating its 60th anniversary: what started in 1947 as a vintage Thanksgiving Ball has become a nine-day celebration of the Barossa: an enjoyable blend of top class food and excellent wine – and a lot more as well, including jazz concerts, fashion parades and even an air show.

With more than 200 different events the Barossa Vintage Festival is a must for any visitor to South Australia over the Easter period.

Advance bookings are essential for many of the festival’s events, and these can be made through Adelaide-based VenueTix

Melbourne Food & Wine Festival

The Melbourne Food & Wine Festival is a major event that attracts more than 250,000 foodies from around the world. They come to the Victorian capital to take part in a full calendar of food and wine events – more than 150 happenings across two weeks.

If you’d like to join their ranks, the dates to remember for this year’s festival are March 16-30.

Highlighting Melbourne as a culinary hot spot, the programme will include events such as the World’s Longest Lunch (March16) where 5,000 people will sit down to lunch at 25 scenic locations across Victoria; and the Cellar Door at Southgate (March 24-25), showcasing some of the state’s finest wines on the banks of the Yarra River.

The Original MasterClass Series is also back on the with a star-studded line-up of international chefs and wine experts.

One of the hot new events this year is the International FLOUR Festival (March 24 celebration of multicultural Melbourne, with the state’s best pizza, bread, naan, roti, noodles, pasta, piadina and gozleme on show.

And if that is not enough to make you break with dieting, Wicked Sunday on March 25 will be a day of decadence where everything from boutique chocolates and Victorian sticky wines to award-winning cheeses and “the best darned coffee on the planet” will be on offer.

Tasmania's Targa for April

Tasmania has some of the best touring roads in the world – which makes Targa Tasmania one of Australia’s top car events.

Targa Tasmania loops around the island state in April each year. Held over six days, the 2007 event from April 17-22, will get under way with an expected field of around 300, including Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Porsches.

The event runs over 2,000 kilometres on roads, that wind through a diverse range of landscapes, including coastal roads and mountain passes.

Targa passes by, or close to, some of the very best of Tasmania's natural wonders, including the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park and an east coast touring route where, if the drivers weren't racing they would surely stop at some of the charming fishing villages to sample the fresh local oysters and crayfish.

An estimated 200,000 people turn out along the various stages of the Targa to see this multi-million dollar motor show -- making it a major tourism event for Tasmania.

Of course if you can't make it to Tasmania in April you could take your own Targa --and tour the very best of Tasmania at a pace where it is okay to linger over fine food and wine, and wonderful World Heritage wilds.


*Selling Down Under keeps you up-to-date with Australian travel product with a bi-monthly turn-the-page on-line publication for the travel industry. Make sure you get your online edition by going www.sellingdownunder.com or sending an email to register@sellingdownunder.com

Victoria for music fans

The annual Sidney Myer Free Concerts – a popular event presented by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in association with the University of Melbourne, will take place on February 14, 17, 21 and 24 at the city’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl.

The 2007 Bowl season opens on February 14 with an exhilarating all-Russian programme, featuring soloist Caroline Almonte in Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 1.

On February 17, the tempo changes to a powerful programme of Verdi arias, ensembles and choruses -- four young Australian soloists joined by the voices of the Melbourne Chorale.

Mendelssohn's violin concerto features one of Australia's most accomplished violinists, Sophie Rowell, as soloist on February 21 – and at this concert, you'll also experience the timeless power of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.

Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 2 comes to the Bowl to wind up this year’s Sidney Myer Free Concerts on February 24 -- fresh from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra performances of this work with Maestro Caetani on the Orchestra's 2007 European tour of Spain, Paris, Berlin and Milan.

Gates open at 16.00 and shows start at 19.00

Meanwhile, if you enjoy jazz, you will want to head out to Halls Gap in the Grampians National Park on February 9 –11 for the Grampians Jazz Festival.

And there is also the annual Echuca-Moama Riverboats, Jazz, Food and Wine Festival taking place from February 16-18. Highlights of this three-day festival along the banks of the mighty Murray River include the Riverboat Ramble – with jazz on board paddlesteamers, a jazz concert and a jazz picnic in the park.

*Selling Down Under keeps you up-to-date with Australian travel product with a bi-monthly turn-the-page on-line publication for the travel industry. Make sure you get your online edition by going www.sellingdownunder.com or sending an email to register@sellingdownunder.com

Women's Golf Tournament for Perth

Perth is to host the Lexus Cup, a top international women’s golf tournament in 2007. This new major sporting event for Western Australia is expected to attract many of the world’s leading female golfers.

It will be played in December at the Novotel Vines Resort and Country Club in the Swan Valley, just a 35-minutes drive from downtown Perth.
Western Australia has also secured the first option to host the Lexus Cup again in 2010 and 2013.

The new event will follow a team match format, similar to the Ryder Cup, fostering the development of top-level women’s golf.

The inaugural Lexus Cup was held in December 2005 in Singapore. An LPGA Tour-sanctioned ladies team event, it puts 12 international players against 12 leading players from Asia. Team members are selected based on their rankings and season earnings, including two captain’s picks and two sponsor’s exemptions.

The Novotel Vines Resort, which is surrounded by wineries, hosted the Johnnie Walker Classic last year, and was home to the Heineken Classic for nine years up until 2001.

Selling Down Under will be featuring Australia’s top golfing resorts in the February/March edition. Make sure you get your online edition by going to register@sellingdownunder.com