Popping my Palooza cherry

Pinot Palooza is such a cool name for a festival, don’t you think?

The world’s largest touring pinot noir festival has been around since 2012 and I finally experienced it on Friday night.

For the second year in a row, it’s teamed up with a cheese festival called Mould to tour the country … what’s not to like about a cheese and pinot-paired night?

MOULD X PINOT PALOOZA was held at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion, showcasing more than 50 varieties of Australian artisan cheese and more than 50 expressions of pinot noir.

I always feel nostalgic when I go to the Hordern. Aside from the many gigs I’ve attended there over the years, it was the site of two special moments I experienced with the eldest: a Doctor Who festival when he was 12 and an all-ages New Order gig days before the first COVID-19 lockdown. Both were fantastic fun.

In this instance I invited my friend Claudia to join me for MOULD x PINOT PALOOZA, as she lives walking distance from the Hordern.

The venue is so easy to access these days – I caught the light rail from Wynyard to Moore Park and it dropped me metres from the action.

We timed our meeting perfectly and waved to each other as I crossed the park before walking through the doors of the Hordern to collect our goodie bags, each featuring a cheese cooler bag and a tasting glass.

There was so much energy and buzz in the room for the event, so it was a happy place to hang out for a few hours.

But we weren’t super keen to line up for 10 minutes to sample each wine, plus Claudia is dairy intolerant. Ooops.

So we sampled some fabulous wines from a Yarra Valley producer called Wolf & Cub, bought a bottle of our favourite and settled into a corner to enjoy the action and the wine.

We rounded out the night by sipping a few Starward whiskies (its honeycomb whisky is sensational), including a splash of the distiller’s delicious coffee old-fashioned before wandering off into the night.

If you’re a Pinot and cheese fan, MOULD x PINOT PALOOZA is heading to Melbourne from 3-5 July, Perth from 7-9 August and Adelaide from 28-30 August.

Song of the day: UB40 “Red red wine”