Organisers of Ripe, Wanaka’s leading food and wine festival, have been forced to cancel this year’s event due to the current covid-19 restrictions.

Otago Event Planning Director, Nathan White, says “we simply had no choice but to cancel this year’s event with the current red-light setting limiting events to 100 people”.

“We had hoped that things may change in time, but the reality is that’s unlikely to happen and we wanted to give supporters as much notice as possible. We are obviously disappointed to be announcing this news today and know that our wine and food community will share in our sentiment.”  

The Ripe Wine and Food Festival, which was due to go ahead on March 19, 2022, at the spectacular Glendhu Bay Station, has been postponed until March 18th 2023.

Ticket holders for this year’s event will have their tickets automatically rolled over to next year and do not need to take any action. Anyone unable to attend next year can gain a full refund (excluding ticket provider fees) by completing a simple form.

“As many of our supporters appreciate, running events in this crazy covid world is challenging. We hope our festival community will join us in getting excited about next year’s festival now that they have a ticket and a date to look forward to,” says Nathan  

Nathan hopes to host a virtual wine event on March 19, 2022, the same day as the event was due to be held.  

“Details will be announced soon, but this virtual event will give lovers of Central Otago wine a chance to connect, learn and taste Central Otago Wines with some of our best-known vintners and winemakers virtually”, adds Nathan.

For those wanting to get their fix of Ripe Festival Wineries before then, www.ripewineco.nz offers wines from a range of the Ripe exhibitors, and is New Zealand’s only dedicated supplier of Central Otago Wines.

Ripe Festival ticket holders will receive an exclusive discount code for Ripe Wine CO so they can still enjoy the exceptional Central Otago wines they would have sampled at the festival.

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