Budburst - Tickets now on sale
Budburst - Tickets now on sale for New Zealand’s first
natural wine and food festival
On a sunny December
morning in 2015, a dozen wine lovers - made up of wine
educators, distributors, restaurateurs, sommeliers,
retailers, writers and winemakers - congregated at an office
on Courtenay Place. They were there as a result of intense
exchange of ideas on social media about what natural is and
why it’s important. For the following three hours the
group discussed at length their motivations, hopes and
dreams to see a natural wine festival held locally in
Wellington.
Budburst is an opportunity to explore
the concepts of artisan craft, healthy consumption, ethical
and sustainable production and diversity in available wine
styles. Our aim is to bring awareness, education, and
discussion together in a festival environment celebrating
the enjoyment of these styles of wine.
Often the
wine community can be accused of preaching to the converted,
the Budburst team wanted to test the waters, using
crowdfunding, to see if there were others out there who were
as interested and excited about natural wine. The response
was a resounding yes. Originally asking for $6,000, the
campaign raised a total of $7,255, the majority of which
came from outside of the wine industry.
The
Budburst crowdfunding efforts helped to secure Prefab Cafe &
Hall on Jessie Street in Wellington for Sunday 13 November.
The full-day festival runs from 11-6 and includes local
food, live music, mini-educational sessions and a bar
serving wine, beer and cider by the glass.
Budburst
will showcase a range of both New Zealand and international
producers, with the festival ticket giving punters access to
over 60 wines. Some of the producers who will be pouring on
the day include Don & Kindeli Wines (Martinborough and
Nelson), Pyramid Valley Wines (Canterbury), Millton Vineyard
(Gisborne), Elisabetta Foradori (Alto Adige), Arianna
Occhipinti (Sicily) and Vincent Careme (Vouvray) with more
to be announced in the coming months.
Regular
tickets go on sale on Friday 29 July at budburst.nz.
Ticket prices range from $50 for a general admission, to $80
for a Friend of Budburst ticket, packed full of extras, to
$350 for one of the limited pre-party seats. The pre-party
is an intimate dining event with producers the night before
the festival plus all the perks of the Friend of Budburst
access on the day.
Natural wine has been growing
steadily in NZ for nearly a decade; not only are there
enthusiasts collecting natural wines from around the world
here, but a strong natural winemaking community has emerged
from the organic winegrowing establishment. Since 2010 we
have started to see restaurants and bars in NZ with a
natural wine focus – in a sense, it is on the cusp of
breaking into the mainstream.
Public awareness of
food provenance and production is on the rise, however, the
same cannot be said for winegrowing and winemaking. Most
consumers are unaware of how diverse permitted winemaking
practices can be, ranging from completely natural to highly
manipulated. This information is not readily available to
the general
consumer.
ends