Regional wineries are enjoying the opportunity to reach new audiences as tourists return to the region, and wine festivals begin to run once more.
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While the 2021 Grampians Grape escape is cancelled, Pyrenees Unearthed Food and Wine Festival recently announced it would run on Saturday, April 17.
The festival will include a range of wines from 25 wineries in the Pyrenees and Grampians regions.
Dog Rock Winery has attended Pyrenees Unearthed Festival every year since its inception almost a decade ago.
Owner Allen Hart said before COVID-19, festivals had been crucial to the businesses sales.
"It's been noticeable on sales because we rely on the Grape Escape, the Unearthed Festival, Three Peaks, and a few other festivals around the area we do," he said.
"It's about brand awareness and giving people the opportunity to try your wines and introduce them to the wines this way.
"Festivals are important. Even though you often don't make a huge amount of money from them, it introduces you to a lot of new customers."
Mr Allen said the sales lost from festivals being cancelled and restaurants being closed had partially been recouped by other means.
"A lot of people have switched to buying online," he said.
"People are still drinking our wine; they're just using other means of buying it.
"Just by good luck, we switched our website to online sales just before COVID in December 2019, so it was perfect timing in that regard.
"We've built a reasonably strong wine club, and they were very supportive."
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Best's Wines Great Western's Nicole Thomson reported a similar shift in sales.
"Online sales have helped out in a huge way, and I think that's the same with a lot of wineries," she said.
"Cellar Door wine sales were obviously down last year but we made up for it by doing different things through social media, like we did some Facebook Live wine tastings and that created more interest and brought people to our website."
Ms Thomson said she believed some changes the business had made out of necessity had improved its offerings.
"All our wine tasting is now seated, and we are going to continue to do that," she said.
"Customers are loving that more one-on-one wine tasting experience.
"It seems to generate a lot more interest in the wine because you're sitting down and you're taking it all in, you're not just standing at the bar with all different people serving you, and you're rushed. It's a more intimate style of wine tasting.
Ms Thomson agreed the primary benefit of events like the Pyrenees Unearthed Festival was the exposure it gave winemakers.
"We don't make a lot of money on the day. But it's a festival where people come from within a couple of hours of the area, and it provides awareness of where we are, and what wines we have," she said.
Ms Thomson said as restrictions eased, the winery was benefitting from the tourists visiting the region.
"With all the people travelling to the Grampians, we've picked up a lot of new customers while keeping our repeat ones," she said.
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"Definitely having events coming back in a small way helps. The (Stawell) Gift is running this year now. That brings a lot of people to the area certainly brings a lot of people to the Great Western Cellar Doors."
Great Western Enterprise chief executive Bruce Ahchow agreed wine sellers would benefit significantly from more events being held in the region.
"I think festivals, events, pop-ups, and markets are all really important parts of the overall mix to get people moving about and doing things, and they all create opportunities for us to present wines and produce," he said.
"It's fabulous. I think people are all very aware of their responsibilities within COVID and are happy to be out and about, and the vendors are undoubtedly pleased to see them.
"It's really only with the last easing of restrictions that Seppelt Cellar Door has been able to get back to business as usual."
Pyrenees Unearthed Festival will have a return bus travelling from Ararat.
For more information on the event, visit www.pyreneesunearthedfestival.com.au.
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