Diary dates to keep you busy this summer

Summer Diary Dates

MARKETS:

Willunga Farmers Market

Check out the new location at Willunga High School. Every Saturday, 8am – 12pm Come rain, hail or shine, enjoy fresh produce from more than eighty farmers and artisan food makers. Become a member for discounts on all your goods, and enjoy the nourishing community atmosphere every week.

Willunga Quarry Market

Adjacent to the Willunga Oval Second Saturday of each month, 9am – 1pm Browse through an eclectic mix of wares ranging from secondhand tools to plants and crafts.

Willunga Artisans and Handmade Market

Willunga Show Hall Second Saturday of each month, 9am – 1pm An inspiring curated market showcasing local art and handmade goods. A great place to buy a unique, handmade gift made from high quality materials.

Goolwa Wharf Market

First and third Sunday of every month, 9am – 3pm With around eighty stalls including bric-a-brac, collectables, fresh local produce, plants, books both new and old, unique artisan goods, and delicious food and coffee, you’ll find a myriad of goodies at this market.

Port Elliot Market

Lakala Reserve Port Elliot First and third Saturday of each month, 9am – 2pm A classic country market with plenty of fresh local produce, plants, bric-a-brac, books, fishing gear, and even a two-dollar stall. Soak up the ambience and variety of wares both you and your dogs can enjoy.

Victor Harbor Farmers Market

Grosvenor Gardens, Victor Harbor Every Saturday, 8am – 12.30pm Spend the morning choosing from thirty plus stalls, with locally caught seafood, organic vegetables, seasonal fruit, local honey, mushrooms, fresh flowers, Fleurieu wines and much more.

Kingscote Farmers & Artisan Market

Kingscote Wharf Second and fourth Sunday of each month, 10am – 2pm With baked goods, preserves, coffee, plants, seasonal produce and locally made arts and crafts, this market is a great place to experience Kangaroo Island wares.

Meadows Market

Meadows Memorial Hall Second Sunday of every month, 9am – 3pm A market focused on promoting community. Returning after Covid closure in 2020, the Meadows Market has something for everyone including plants, food, bric-a-brac and much more.

Myponga Market

The old Myponga Cheese Factory (next to Smiling Samoyed Brewery) Saturdays, Sundays and most public holidays, 9.30am – 4pm Browse a range of stalls, including art, books, ceramics, toys, records and collectables. There’s also a variety of local food choices including baked goods and seasonal produce.

Strathalbyn Market

Next to the Gilbert’s Motor Museum on High Street Third Sunday of every month, 8am – 3pm A quaint, country-style market with bric-a-brac, local produce and condiments, crafts, plants, jewellery and much more.

Yankalilla Craft and Produce Market

Agricultural Hall Third Saturday of each month, 9am – 1pm This lesser-known market is a surprising gem offering homemade jams and preserves, delicious sweet treats, locally grown fruits and vegetables, plus craftwork, trinkets and unique gifts.

Below: Purchase some original artwork at the Surf Art 2021 Exhibition in the Arts Centre, Port Noarlunga between the 10th and 31st of January 2022. (Image shown by Sara Lane: Shallows – Ocean Waves #10, Resin, wood Winner of the Surf Art exhibition 2020.)

Summer offers the chance to enjoy a slower pace of life, even if just for a few hot, lazy days. Maybe wander along a nature trail or relax at the beach. And if you need a retail therapy fix, the festive season is the perfect chance to support small, local businesses. There are over 100 cellar doors to visit on the Fleurieu, cafes and restaurants to while away an afternoon, galleries to explore and goods and produce available to purchase at the usual local shops and markets. Soak up the sunshine, support local and enjoy all the natural beauty and produce the Fleurieu has to offer.

FESTIVALS AND EVENTS:

DECEMBER

Reclaim – Sculpture Exhibition

Signal Point Gallery, Goolwa Wharf Precinct 1 December – 9 January, 10am – 4pm Samuel Mulcahy and Victor Waclawik examine a world where nature takes over and the plant kingdom reigns supreme. Through recycled materials the artists explore the concept of nature reclaiming the anthropocentric realm.

Surf Art 2021 Exhibition

Onkaparinga Gallery and Red Rover Gallery, Arts Centre Port Noarlunga 10 December – 31 January, 10am – 4pm Celebrating the ocean, the coastal environment and all things surf culture, Surf Art 2021 brings together artworks from artists across Australia. For more information, contact: artsbookings@onkaparinga.sa.gov.au

Carols in Your Car

Yankalilla Oval 12 December, 5 – 6.30pm Christmas cheer from the comfort of your own car. Decorate your car and sing along to carols in Yankalilla.

Normanville Twilight Christmas Markets

The Village Green, Normanville 17 December, 4 – 8pm A family-friendly event with roving entertainers, local food vendors, art and craft stalls. There may even be a surprise visit from Santa!

KI Brews, Tunes & BBQ Fest

The Shearing Shed, Eleanor Downs, Kangaroo Island 18 December, 2 – 8pm Head to The Shearing Shed for this inaugural event featuring live music from The Cherry Pickers and Chris Finnen, Jackie Winter and Rose as well as the launch of Grasshopper Brewing Co. Beer on tap will be complemented by delicious BBQ.

Twilight Christmas Markets

Willunga Farmers Market 23 and 30 December, 4 – 7pm Find all your favourite stalls in one convenient location at the Willunga High School, with room to relax and soak up the festival atmosphere of the Market.

Utopian State Picnic Party

Papershell Farm, 203 Almond Grove Road, Willunga South 28 – 30 December, 12 midday – 10pm Celebrate the Christmas and New Years’ break at this family-friendly, three-day picnic event with food and drink offerings from South Australian producers and an all-local live music lineup. Tickets: $55 for a one-day pass or $135 for a three-day pass, children under 13 free. For more information, see papershellfarm.com

Murray River Splash

Sturt Reserve Foreshore, Sturt Reserve Road, Murray Bridge 31 December – 24 January, 10am – 4pm A little further afield than the Fleurieu, the Murray River Splash Festival is returning to Murray Bridge this summer. A family-friendly New Year’s Eve event will kickstart the festivities with daily fun activities through January. For information as it’s released, see murraybridge.sa.gov.au/discover

JANUARY

Jetty Fest 100

10 – 12 December A three-day celebration is being planned by the Port Noarlunga Business and Tourism Association to commemorate the jetty’s centenary. Supported by the City of Onkaparinga, the festival will showcase how the community has used the jetty through the decades. jettyfest100.com

Victor Harbor Art Show

Albert Place, Victor Harbor 15 – 22 January, 9.30am – 8.30pm Celebrating its 43rd year, the Victor Harbor Art Show is Australia’s largest outdoor art exhibition, showing over 1600 paintings in a marquee on Warland Reserve. victorharborartshow.com.au

Santos Festival of Cycling 2022

21 – 29 January While the Santos Tour Down Under has been cancelled for 2022, cycling enthusiasts from around Australia will still gather across South Australia’s regions to celebrate cycling in all forms, including road, track, BMX, mountain biking, paracycling and cyclocross. For more information, see tourdownunder.com.au

Fleurieu Beer Festival

5 Main Rd, Willunga 22 January, 2 – 9pm Local Fleurieu craft brewers in association with the Willunga Recreation Park are hosting the Fleurieu Peninsula Beer Festival. Listen to live music and browse the stalls with friends while meeting the producers and sampling the Fleurieu’s finest brews and food. Tickets $25. willungarecpark.com.au/fleurieu-beer-festival

Strathalbyn Cup

Strathalbyn Racecourse 30 January, 10.30am – 5pm Get your best frock on and head to Strathalbyn for a day at the races. Enjoy the excitement of race day in a picturesque setting with something for the whole family to enjoy. For more information, see theracessa.com.au >

Lit

15 January – 14 February Fleurieu Arthouse, McLaren Vale. Opening event 15 January from 4 to 6 pm. A room with illuminated metal artworks and sculpture created by Warren Pickering and Anna Small.

FEBRUARY

Fleurieu Film Festival

Main Screening and Awards Night McLaren Vale and Fleurieu Visitors Centre 5 February, 6.30 – 11pm Returning to McLaren Vale and Fleurieu Visitors Centre, the highly popular Fleurieu Film Festival will showcase short films (eight minutes and under) capturing the theme ‘Dreams’ by emerging and established filmmakers. The screening and awards will take place alongside good food, great wine and entertainment. Tickets from $30 – $35.

Filming the Fleurieu!

6 February Departure location and time TBA A new event for the Fleurieu Film Festival, this workshop is for budding directors who will be taken around the region by experienced filmmakers as they learn to make their own short film on their own smartphone. For more information on both events, see fleurieufilmfestival.com.au

Subterra – The Unearthing

Gemtree Wines, 167 Elliott Rd, McLaren Vale 19 February Subterra has been ageing in a barrel buried in the earth under Gemtree’s vines. Join Melissa and Mike Brown for a unique wine experience as you witness the single barrel unearthing and sample the 2021 vintage direct from the barrel. Experience the cultural landscape with Senior Custodian Karl Winda Telfer before heading to the winery to taste and classify Gemtree’s premium shiraz wines with the winemakers and enjoy a sumptuous lunch. For more information visit gemtreewines.com/events

Chilli Fest Willunga

Willunga Recreation Park 19 – 20 February, 10am – 4pm A red hot weekend celebrating all things chilli – from plants to produce to chilli foods. Enjoy cooking demonstrations, live music and shop for chilli-related merchandise. If that’s too spicy for you, chill out at the local artisan market with live music, beer, wine and sangria. Cost: $10, children under 16 free. For more information, see chillifest.com.au

ONGOING

Fall From Grace

206-208 Port Road, Aldinga Open Fridays 5 – 9pm Looking for something a little more cultured to do on your Friday night? Visit Fall From Grace for a tasting, available between 6pm – 8pm, perhaps featuring a small producer, an interesting grape or a particular region. You can buy a glass or bottle to drink there or take home, paired with your choice of exceptional cheeses and smallgoods, or order a pizza at The Shack and they’ll deliver it straight to you. For more information, see fallfromgracewine.squarespace.com

Live Music at Big Easy Radio

11 Stonehouse Lane, Aldinga Fridays 12 midday – 9pm, Saturdays 12 midday – 6pm and Sundays 12 midday – 5pm Bring on the weekend as you enjoy good vibes, great wine and live music (on Fridays and Sundays) down south at Big Easy Radio cellar door. Food trucks will feed you while you sit back, relax and soak up the laid back atmosphere. For more information, see bigeasyradio.com

Twilights at Chalk Hill

56 Field St, McLaren Vale Every Friday, live music from 5.30pm Enjoy live music while you gaze out at the view over McLaren Vale at the food and drinks hub created by Never Never Distilling Co., Cucina di Strada and Chalk Hill Wines. chalkhillwines.com.au/

Summer Twilight Markets

Rotary Park, Christies Beach Fortnightly Fridays from 3 December – 25 March, 5pm – 9pm Held in the park on the Esplanade, watch as the sun sets over the ocean while enjoying a family-friendly evening of live bands, food trucks, face painting and the chance to support a collection of small local businesses and creatives. For more information, visit @marketsbytjsevents on Facebook

Let there be light.

But not too much.

CURTAINS & BLINDS

Generation next

Story by Kate Le Gallez. Photography by Jason Porter.

Page left and above: The expansive and modern extension to the deck sits comfortably next to the 1850s worker’s cottage and captures great views of the surrounding vineyards.

Even the best of families are complicated organisms, each individual a part of the same whole. You’d think things would only get more complicated when you add a 180-year-old family business into the mix, yet somehow the Oliver family of Oliver’s Taranga get it done.

And in the past year, they’ve taken on one of the most treacherous activities any family can undertake – renovating the family home. Or in this case, the family winery.

‘It’s more of a rebirth,’ explains Corrina Wright, winemaker and sixthgeneration Oliver family member, of the renovation and extension of the Oliver’s Taranga cellar door. Anyone familiar with the old cellar door will recall the charming (and small) 1850s worker’s cottage and deck. Pre-Covid, it was charmingly squishy. Post-Covid, and the attendant density requirements, it was unworkable.

The plans for a new cellar door were, however, well in train prior to 2020. ‘We’d had the project planned for a while and were just putting our big girl pants on to get it happening,’ says Corrina. The design, created with Tylen Spilsbury of Spilsbury Designer Homes in Victor Harbor, envisaged making better use of the cottage’s rooms, while also creating a bigger space and commercial kitchen to host larger groups – bigger family dinners, if you like – for their porchetta parties and other events.

The resulting design keeps the cottage at the winery’s heart, transforming the existing floor plan into a series of bespoke spaces with custom fitouts that will host private tasting and education experiences. Instead of entering the cottage directly, guests will now enter through the new build, via a series of curved red brick steps to the new deck and indoor tasting area. From the deck, a strip of skylight reminds people they are leaving the new and entering the old; the cottage in no way hiding, but also coyly not revealing its new colours until visitors are invited inside.

On the day I visit in November 2021, landscaping work is happening apace with builder Dean Wyly himself laying bricks to edge a pathway. Soon Dowie Designs will be on site to plant out native gardens. It’s an unseasonably cold day, but you can feel the simmering anticipation of both staff and contractors at the prospect of officially throwing open the doors for a summer of wine and gin tasting on the deck. >

But back in March 2020, all this felt like it may be out of reach. ‘We were about to press go and Covid happened. We ended up having a bit of a sit down, because there was no certainty at that time,’ recalls Corrina. The thought of building a cellar door without the prospect of people being able to actually visit was understandably daunting. The Oliver family gave it another spin. ‘We decided as a family that we wanted to have a positive story to come out of Covid,’ Corrina continues.

It fell to Sam Oliver, general manager and Corrina’s cousin among the sixth-generation cohort, to do ‘a shit-tonne of work’ (as Corrina puts it) to successfully apply for a grant under government programs for ‘shovel ready’ projects. They eventually broke ground later that year, the build taking around twelve months all up. Sam took on the role of project manager, a role he soon discovered would be extremely active, although the load was eased considerably by builder Dean. ‘He’s very ‘can do anything’ and “we’ll find a way”,’ says Sam. ‘So as we’ve been building, he’s come up with things along the way that might work a bit better, we’ve chatted about it and then made a decision.’

The end result is a cellar door that, despite its obviously increased size (they can now host 150 people), feels more like an enhancement than an expansion. This may in part be due to the way the design nurtures an increased connection with the vines. ‘A lot of people commented on being in the vines when they visited the old cellar door,’ explains Corrina. ‘We see it every day, so we don’t really think about it. But we wanted the renovation to create a much better connection with the indoor and outdoor.’

Page left and top right: Warm woods, polished concrete and brass fixtures all come together in the stylish interiors. A great place to enjoy the Oliver’s delicious wines. Bottom left and right: Sixth generation Olivers: Operations manager Brioni Oliver (left) and winemaker Corrina Wright (right) and general manager, Sam Oliver.

The deck plays a major part in achieving this. It functions as a covered indoor/outdoor space, with fans and heaters to deal with all weather and enormous café windows that will open wide on sunny days. But it’s also about how the deck positions visitors within space. With its slight elevation, the sightline from the deck neatly steps over the carpark and driveway, drawing the eye to the surrounding vines. The parallel lines, so green and leafy in spring, feel as though they wrap around the cellar door, carefully cradling the winery. It’s the perfect launch point for their new vineyard tours, which see visitors hop aboard a golf cart to rattle through the vines, wine tasting in situ.

A live experiment on the deck’s potential is being conducted on the day I visit, with Brioni Oliver, operations manager and final member of the sixth-generation management trifecta, hosting a lunch. ‘I was actually a little nervous as we hadn’t used the deck or the kitchen before,’ Brioni tells me later. Their new kitchen was put through its paces by the Salopian Inn’s Karena Armstrong who was catering the lunch. Fortunately she gave the kitchen the thumbs up. ‘This summer is going to be super fun for people to sit out on the deck and have a wine tasting or a gin,’ Brioni enthuses. ‘I was really proud to show it off.’

One of the risks of renovating was losing the intimacy the original cellar door offered. The family wanted to retain that welcoming feel within the increased space. Their build team responded in a myriad ways, each design decision and selection culminating in an overall sense of familial comfort. The deck is divided by a low stone wall which helps to organise the large open space, the limestone speaking directly to the cottage’s façade. Curves outnumber straight lines, softening edges and creating flow. >

Page left: Step inside the cottage’s Archibald Room for a private tasting. This page top left and right: Everything has been personalised in the interiors, products and services at Oliver’s. See artworks by Renee Goulding while enjoying the local food showcase. Appreciate the thought and care of their team all delivered with a good sense of humour and a deep respect for family history. Bottom left: Fifth generation viticulturist Don Oliver.

Perforated metal lines the ceiling inside and out to absorb sound, prioritising conversation and communion between friends and family.

The family engaged local businesses, in particular Nathan Wundersitz of SpaceCraft Joinery and Marcus Syvertsen of Little Road Studio, to realise their vision. ‘From generations before us helping to start the Southern Football Association and helping to build the hospital all the way through to our generation, we feel it’s really important to contribute to the local community and being able to employ local trades is key,’ explains Corrina.

Inside, the combined work of Nathan and Marcus makes lush use of tone and texture; the finishes are high-end but approachable. Elements include banquette-style seating and curvaceous, ribbed jarrah panelling along an eleven-metre front tasting bar. These design notes carry through into the cottage, their form creating synchronicity between new and old with variety added through different fabrics and fixtures. ‘The new fit-out is pared back and refined. It compliments a level of detail and precision; no doubt traits of a great winemaker,’ explains Nathan. ‘Given the longevity and multi-generational nature of Oliver’s Taranga, the design was intended to be timeless and meet the needs of generations to come.’

Marcus drew from the existing Oliver’s branding to develop the colour palette. ‘My emphasis was on utilising those colours to create a contemporary classic edge that’s not pretentious and reflects the family,’ he says. ‘The design is intended to be inviting and comforting at the same time.’ Like Sam, Marcus credits Dean the builder with the success of the project. ‘Nothing was too hard. I did present him with a few interesting ideas and concepts and he was like “yep, we can make that happen”.’ >

Top left: The unisex bathrooms are each coloured differently. The arched doors are colour-matched to the individual polished concrete basins made by Adelaide Outdoor Kitchens. Bottom left and right: The deck is divided by a low stone wall which helps to organise the large open space (incorporating the impressive stone wood oven), the limestone speaking directly to the cottage’s façade. Curves outnumber straight lines, softening edges and creating flow.

No where is that close working relationship more successfully on show than in, of all places, the toilets. They are nice toilets, a choose-your-own-adventure of toilets, with each one coloured differently. The arched doors are colour-matched to the individual polished concrete basins made by Adelaide Outdoor Kitchens. The joinery is offset by the terrazzo tiles, evoking the contemporary classic feel Marcus describes.

This play between old and new, contemporary and classic, is as alive in the family as it is in the building. Don Oliver, viticulturist and fifth-generation family member, offers his perspective from the older generation. ‘I’m really excited about the larger venue we’ve got now. I look forward to seeing a lot more people here,’ Don says. ‘They’re not very good at doing their budget, but they’ve got a sensational result,’ he adds. It’s a good-natured and self-aware jibe because he clearly supports the younger generation’s efforts. ‘My dad never held us back. And I hope I do the same for them,’ he continues. ‘All the generations are singing from the same hymn book. It’s not easy to do, but we’ve got a good lot of family members and the sky’s the limit for where we could end up.’

As summer beckons, the next generation in Sam, Brioni and Corrina are excited and nervous in equal part. ‘It’s really lovely to be able to elevate the experience,’ adds Corrina. ‘We feel a bit posh.’

She’s right, the new cellar door is posh (there’s a fizzy water tap and everything!) but it’s approachably, warmly posh, rather than nose-in-the-air posh. And that’s because at its heart is a family who care about each other and the region. A family who want to invite everyone in for a good chinwag and a bloody good glass of wine.