Piermont Retreat on Tasamania’s East Coast embraces the colder climes, with Homestead Restaurant hosting Winter’s Bounty X Jo Barrett on July 18. The acclaimed chef and food sustainability champion heads south to stoke the fires at the under-the-radar regional restaurant and resort, preparing a ticketed long-table feast highlighting the winter harvest on the restaurant’s terrace beside open firepits. piermont.com.au

Cosy up to one of South Australia’s finest boutique wine regions this winter, in July, as the Adelaide Hills throws a three-day celebration of its increasingly renowned cool-climate reds. Headlined by delicious.’ own Matt Preston, expect roaring fires, afternoon tastings in the winter sun, long lunches, cellar door takeovers and much more, all a short drive (or taxi ride) out of the Adelaide city centre. southaustralia.com

The cars are extraordinary – an incredible display of motoring history stretching along Hastings Street, showcasing everything from vintage rarities to the latest from Bentley, Ferrari and Rolls-Royce. But the Noosa Concours d’Elegance offers a multitude of reasons to book a winter escape to Noosa. Expect a three-course menu at Sails paired with Yalumba wines, and Pommery Champagne Masterclasses at Locale Noosa that pair three cuvées with canapés steps from the beach. noosaconcours.com.au

Twice a year, Adelaide’s Convention Centre fills with the best of the state’s wine, spirits and produce for three days of tasting and discovery. For the summer edition, more than 130 wineries, distilleries and producers make the trip – from Barossa heavyweights to Limestone Coast newcomers and small-batch distillers barely a year old. The Wine Discovery Stage at the Adelaide festival offers free guided pours across the weekend. Not to be outdone, the winter edit of the festival warms up July, with a smaller but still mighty line-up of wines and spirits. cellardoorfestival.com

Not every festival announces itself with a single big event. But this one spreads across three weeks from July to August in the forests and farms around Noojee in West Gippsland – truffle hunts with trained dogs, chef-led dinners, long lunches and seasonal menus across local cafes and country pubs. French black truffles, grown in the cool soils of the region and dug at peak season, are the thread running through it all. Worth combining with a stay in the Baw Baw Ranges. noojeetrufflefestival.com.au

Ten days of food, wine, culture and community are spread across Tropical North Queensland – from Cairns to Port Douglas, Innisfail, Mareeba and Yungaburra in July and August. Degustation dinners, a grand food and wine day, Gala Ball and the Mareeba Sausage and Salami Festival sit alongside events honouring the migrants (like my nonno) who shaped the region’s farming history. Hard to overstate how much the region loves its Italian heritage. cairnsitalianfestival.com.au

The Curated Plate, held in late July and August, is one of Australia’s best food and wine festivals for sheer ambition. It includes 30-plus events curated by culinary director Peter Kuruvita using the Sunshine Coast’s farms and coastline as a canvas. Expect Sri Lankan feasts in garden settings, fire-driven lunches in the hinterland, treetop breakfasts, bee-keeping workshops, coastal degustation dinners and a tuna-cutting demonstration at Walker’s Seafood. Mooloolaba seafood and hinterland produce anchor every event. thecuratedplate.com.au

Set between two World Heritage-listed icons – the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest – Taste Port Douglas brings together top Australian and international chefs, passionate producers and hospitality leaders for an intimate celebration of flavour and place each August. Masterclasses, long lunches amid a grove of palms overlooking the ocean and restaurant takeovers around Port Douglas make this four-day festival as much about the destination as the food. tasteportdouglas.com.au

The food, wine and creative communities of the Central West fling open their doors over 10 days in August, for the The Orange Region Fire Festival. It kicks off with the Millthorpe Fire Fair, when quaint Pym Street is lit with the blaze of firepits and overtaken with local entertainers, providores and drinks makers; introducing a program centred around the region’s acclaimed food and wine industry that includes fireside feasts, bonfire sessions and one-off food and wine events at local businesses. orange360.com.au/Orange-Region-Fire-Festival

What started as a bet between two friends – one Calabrian, one Abruzzian – about who makes the best salami has become one of Australia’s most joyful food events: the Griffith Salami Festival. Salamis arrive from across the country to be judged for the competition, which falls on the last day of A Taste of Italy Griffith, held in August each year. Winners are announced over a long lunch with live folk music at the festival hub in Pioneer Park. This is for food lovers who are passionate about Italian culture. atasteofitalygriffith.com.au

While Darwin Festival is primarily about celebrating Top End culture, food is increasingly at its centre. Think coconut-crumbed barramundi tacos from Sanchos, Sri Lankan hoppers from MasterChef alumna Minoli De Silva, cardamom donuts from Christine’s Exotic Eats and Jimmy Shu’s Hanuman doing what it does best: showcasing the city’s multicultural flavours. The Taste of Darwin program also features events such as a Seven Seasons native ingredients dinner, sunset seafood session with NT fishermen and Darwin Wine Party featuring 60 Australian wines. darwinfestival.org.au

The annual Moreton Bay Food + Wine Festival has quietly become one of south-east Queensland’s most crowd-pleasing annual events. Over three days, around 180 food and drink producers set up along more than a kilometre of waterfront on the Woody Point foreshore. Expect celebrity chef demonstrations, a proper cellar door and live music running across multiple stages as the sun drops over the bay. Arrive hungry. moretonbayfoodandwine.com.au

Canberra’s wattle is often in bloom by August, and there’s no better reason to get outside. Born in 2014 from the ethos ‘Eat, Drink, Groove’ The Forage is one of the best food and drink festivals in Australia for its sense of community. The carefully curated street food event transforms some of the nation capital’s underutilised city spaces into lively, place-based experiences. Food trucks, restaurants and mobile vendors serve restaurant-quality food alongside local live music. The capital’s food culture, distilled into one very good afternoon. theforage.com.au

Father’s Day weekend in Halls Gap just got a whole lot smokier. Australia’s leading pitmasters – including Jimmy Brisket, who has represented Australia twice at the World Championship Barbecue Cook-Off in Texas – descend on the Grampians for three days of live-fire cooking, fiery pitmaster competitions and more than $13,000 in prize money. Blues and roots music, regional food and drink producers and a self-guided BBQ Trail through Halls Gap and Pomonal are all part of the program. grampiansbbqfestival.com.au

Co-curated by chef Christine Manfield and Northern Rivers food advocate Amy Colli, this five-day October festival packs almost 30 events into one of Australia’s most ambitious regional food weekends. Highlights include a river cruise with Bundjalung chef Mindy Woods serving wild-harvested seafood, a rum barrel dinner at Husk Distillery, a five-course tasting menu at Pipit and Palisa Anderson cooking from her Boon Luck Farm produce at Bistro Livi. savourthetweed.com.au