The NSW Food and Wine Festival is returning for its eighth year for what is the state’s biggest and best celebration of flavours. The festival is essentially a month-long celebration of all things edible and drinkable, bringing together New South Wales’ top chefs, winemakers, sommeliers, baristas, brewers and producers. It is running from February 7 – March 1 and features a huge array of markets, banquets, wine and dining sessions and of course the infamous Sydney Cellar Door.

The Sydney Morning Herald Growers’ Markets
This Saturday 7th February will be a special Growers’ Market in Pyrmont Bay Park. Not only is it the first markets of the year, but it also signals the opening of the NSW Food and Wine Festival. The markets feature over 70 producers’ stalls selling fresh fruit and vegetables, local meat and seafood, and it is also the ideal place to grab yourself a scrumptious Saturday morning breakfast. The markets take place from 7am-11am and visitors also receive recipe inspiration from guest celebrity chefs and a signed copy of The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide by chief restaurant reviewer Terry Durack.

Lunar Markets
From February 12-22 Pyrmont Bay Park will become an Asian-cuisine-lovers’ delight with the pop-up food festival, the Lunar Markets. Over 11 nights, more than 20 stalls of mouth-watering Asian delicacies will entice your tastebuds and nightly entertainment will arouse your festive spirit. The markets coincide with the Chinese New Year, making this cultural experience a rare and exciting event for all Sydney-siders to enjoy. Make the most of noodle market favourites, Hoy Pinoy and The Star’s Fat Noodle, and have a dance at the groovy Japanese rock’n’roll bar Daniel San. The Lunar Markets are the ideal way to experience sumptious, authentic asian cuisine and bring in the Year of the Ram with true Chinese flair.

Sydney Cellar Door
The Sydney Cellar Door is one of the most renowned aspects of the NSW Food and Wine Festival. Taking place in Hyde Park from February 27-March 1, the Sydney Cellar Door is a menagerie of incredible food and wine set against Sydney’s most idyllic yet central outdoor park. This event features DJs and live bands and of course include gourmet produce from the most renowned growers and artisans around the state. Just some of the highlights of this year’s cellar door include Salt Meats Cheese, Porteno, Bodega, Mary’s and Rosebery’s Clubhouse Bar and Restaurant. From rustic Mudgee wines to award-winning smoked fish, and tantalising fresh olive oil, the scents wafting through Hyde Park will be sure to attract food and wine-lovers from all over the city and even the state.

Sparkling wine can only truly be recognised as champagne if it has originated from the Champagne region in the Northeast of France. Champagne is a historic province famous for its sparkling wine, and unparalleled in its fame for a local product. According to legend, champagne was not actually invented in the region, but rather brought up from the Languedoc, in the south of France. The fantastic soil and climatic conditions of the Champagne region is the major reason for the success of the region’s bright bubbly wine.

In the late fifth century, the monarch or northern France, King Clovis, promised his wife that if he won a battle to defend his territory that he would convert to Christianity. After winning, he was baptised in a church in the city of Reims in the heart of the Champagne region. This triggered a tradition for centuries after in which Kings of France were crowned in Reims at a grand cathedral built there. Because of Reim’s isolation and difficulty to travel to, the royal court would stay in the Champagne region afterwards, taking advantage of its fruity local wines. At this time, the wines were actually still as the grapes were harvested and fermented in just a few weeks. However, as the wine in the region became more popular and was exported further away, new barrels were not opened until Spring – thus appearing effervescent.

Champagne garnered a reputation of being a fun and beneficial beverage and was commonly favoured amongst nobility, particularly King Louis XV. With the industrialisation of the 19th Century, champagne became an aspirational beverage among the newly rich merchant class. It was around this time that the alcoholic beverage also became a popular drink of choice to ring in the New Year. The complexity involved in producing champagne, on top of its larger price tag meant that it was enjoyed on special occasions to add celebratory extravagance. The exciting fizz and renewing bubbles also add an extra element of opulence, and the fizz prevents from it being a beverage to consume quickly.

Drinking at New Year’s Eve celebrations dates back to solstice rituals, at which pagans made offerings to their gods with a special mead or wine. As New Year’s Eve evolved to become more secular, consuming alcohol on New Year’s Eve transitioned from a religious festivity to being intertwined with champagne’s reputation as a celebratory indulgence. Marketers ensured that this reputation of enjoying a glass of bubbly on the significant occasion of New Year’s Eve has been well maintained, and perhaps become even more of a staple of the annual celebration.

One of the major downfalls of ringing in the New Year at one of the public vantage points around Sydney Harbour’s foreshore is that most of the locations prohibit alcohol. While some of these areas provide alcoholic vendors, most of the spots have complete bans on alcohol and glass – not to mention the enormous lines celebrants will have to endure at the few alcohol-friendly sites.

To avoid these restrictions and guarantee the ability to partake in the age-old ritual of enjoying a champagne as the clock strikes midnight this 31st December, attend an exclusive harbour cruise this New Year’s Eve. MV EPICURE I has limited tickets to guarantee luxury and comfort for those lucky attendees. The luxury cruise includes an array of sophisticated G.H. Mumm Champagne, which is one of the largest Champagne producers in Reims in the hills of this historic French province. G.H. Mumm is included in the ticket, thereby allowing you to connect to the history of ringing in the New Year with an authentic glass of champagne in hand.

Anyone wishing to celebrate New Year’s Eve with the true extravagance it deserves cannot look past the luxurious MV EPICURE I New Year’s Eve harbour cruise. Don’t pass up your opportunity to celebrate this New Year’s Eve with a bang – plus a huge array of delectable cuisine, plenty of other alcoholic options, stunning front-row views of Sydney’s world renowned fireworks, world-class musical entertainment and three levels of decadent space for celebration.