New drinking establishments spring up in Victoria's Heartland

Looking for somewhere new to enjoy a drink in the Macedon Ranges and surrounds?

New in Woodend, Josephine's is described as a welcoming new wine bar championing the best of the Macedon Ranges and regional Victoria.

The cosy space, just off High Street, features a rotating selection of natural and minimal-intervention wines paired with a seasonal share-style menu showcasing produce from small organic farmers and artisan producers.

See josephineswinebar.com.au

Set to open in late August, Saint Brigid’s in Daylesford is a new cocktail and craft beer bar from the team behind Daylesford Brewing Co.

Located just off Vincent Street, the venue blends traditional English-inspired charm with a modern touch, offering signature cocktails, local craft beer and share plates from the adjoining Marrow kitchen.

See saintbrigidsdaylesford.com

Also in Daylesford, Leggatt St Bar is billed as an exciting new wine bar from the team behind Daylesford’s popular winespeake cellar + deli.

Leggatt St Bar is set to open on the shores of Lake Daylesford in late August. Featuring a curated wine list and a food offering shaped by the strong producer relationships developed through winespeake, the venue will focus on seasonal, share-style dishes thoughtfully paired with wine.

* Info provided by Victoria's Heartland Tourism. https://www.victoriasheartland.com.au/

Meet the airport where you are most likely to miss your connection

Ever had to make a tight connecting flight at Sydney Airport, where the international and domestic terminals are a public train or bus ride apart? It can be stressful. 

Well Sydney is not even close to being the worst airport at which to make a connecting flight, the results of a new travel survey reveal. 

  
Travel-tech company AirHelp analysed which airports pose the greatest risk for travellers in fear of missing their connecting flights, news hub Travel Mole reported.

The analysis examined internal data on missed flight connections at 196 airports with Italy’s Milan/Bergamo Orio al Serio (Carravagio) Airport recording the highest risk and Brazil’s Florianópolis Hercílio Luz International Airport achieved the highest score of 9, making it the airport offering the best chances for a smooth transfer.

The 15 best airports for connections: 1. Florianópolis Hercílio Luz, Brazil; 2. Tallinn, Estonia; 3. Goiânia Santa Genoveva, Brazil; 4. Indianapolis, US; 5. Florence Peretola, Italy; 6. Newcastle, UK; 7. Columbus John Glenn, US; 

8. Genoa Cristoforo Colombo, Italy; 9. Kansas City, US; 10. Brindisi Papola Casale; 11. Jacksonville, US; 12. Cluj-Napoca, Romania; 13. Billund, Denmark; 14. Santiago de Compostela, Spain; 15. Quebec Jean Lessage, Canada. 

And the riskiest: 1. Milan Bergamo, Italy; 2. Dallas Fort Worth, US;  3. Frankfurt, Germany; 4. São Paulo Guarulhos, Brazil; 5. Philadelphia, US; 6. Atlanta Hartfield, US, 7. Chicago O’Hare, US;  8. Chicago Midway, US; 9. Warsaw Chopin, Poland; 10. Madrid Bajaras, Spain; 11. Charlotte Douglas, US; 12. Denver, US; 13. London Stansted, UK; 14. Munich, Germany; 15. Paris CDG, France. 

 So lots of major US airports with warning lights. 

“One of the most important factors in whether travellers miss their connecting flight is the available transfer time,” says Tomasz Pawliszyn, CEO at AirHelp. 

“The more time passengers have between arrival and departure, the lower the risk of missing their next flight.”

Recommended connection times generally range between 30 and 60 minutes for domestic transfers, 60 to 90 minutes for transfers between domestic and international flights, and up to 120 minutes for international connections.

If you are going to miss a connection, it is best to do so in Europe. 

If passengers miss a connecting flight because of a delay, airlines are required under EU passenger rights regulation EC261 to arrange alternative transportation to the final destination.

If the journey must continue the following day, travellers are also entitled to care services such as hotel accommodation, meals and transportation between the airport and hotel.

Under certain conditions, passengers may additionally be entitled to compensation of up to €600, for example if they arrive at their final destination more than three hours late, barring "extraordinary circumstances". 

Source: AirHelp’s May 2026 analysis of 196 airports.

TarraWarra Estate adds new premium wine experiences

One of my very first gigs as a wine writer was attending the opening of TarraWarra Estate in Victoria's Yarra Valley. 

Owners Marc and Eva Besen put on quite a show. 

 

Four decades on, Ultimate Winery Experiences Australia (UWEA) has welcomed TarraWarra as the newest member of its collection of premium Australian wineries.

TarraWarra Estate brings together cool-climate wine, food, art and nature across a 400-hectare property in the heart of one of Australia's most-visited wine regions.

The Besens purchased the property in 1979 and launched four or five years later. 

Today, the estate encompasses 23.9 hectares of vines, an extensive nature reserve, cattle grazing, a kitchen garden, cellar door and restaurant, as well as a spectacular art gallery. 

UWEA executive officer Sarah Myers says TarraWarra Estate's combination of wine, food, art, impressive architecture and landscape makes it a natural addition to the collective.

“What makes TarraWarra special is how seamlessly these elements come together. Visitors can spend time exploring the estate, discovering its wines and food, and engaging with the art, architecture and natural environment in a way that feels distinctly Yarra Valley,” said Myers.

“TarraWarra reflects what we look for in an Ultimate Winery Experience – it goes well beyond wine tasting and gives visitors a deeper connection to the winery, its story and the region."

At the heart of TarraWarra Estate is its striking subterranean cellar door, where visitors can explore wines including chardonnay, pinot noir and syrah, alongside barbera, nebbiolo, pinot noir rosé and a roussanne-viognier-marsanne blend from talented winemaker Sarah Fagan. 

The chef-hatted restaurant is led by head chef Daniel Snooks. 

Two signature experiences will form part of TarraWarra Estate's UWEA offering.

The Vineyard Tour & Tasting ($200 per person) takes guests on a guided tour of the vineyards for an introduction to the estate and its approach to sustainable viticulture, before moving into the barrel hall for a private tasting of chardonnay and pinot noir. 

For a deeper immersion, Land, Vine & Vision ($450 pp) sees guests are welcomed at the cellar door before enjoying a six-course lunch with matched wines at the estate restaurant, followed by a visit to the TarraWarra Museum of Art and the Eva and Marc Besen Centre, where they can view works from the museum's collection that would ordinarily be held in storage. A version including private return transfers from Melbourne is also available for $750 per person.

“We are excited to work with Ultimate Winery Experiences Australia and the wineries it represents, each offering a unique perspective on Australian wine and the regions we call home,” said TarraWarra Estate general manager Samantha Isherwood.

TarraWarra Estate is at 311 Healesville-Yarra Glen Road, Yarra Glen. 

The cellar door is open Tuesday to Sunday, with the restaurant open Wednesday to Sunday for lunch.

Marlborough cans long-running gourmet festival

One of New Zealand's longest-running gourmet festivals has been shelved, with organisers this week confirming the Marlborough Wine & Food Festival has been placed on hiatus after over four decades.

The 2027 festival had been scheduled for February 13, 2027, but tickets were never released for sale.

Wine Marlborough general manager Marcus Pickens said the call followed "a number of difficult but necessary discussions".

"It was a hard decision, particularly given the festival's long history and the special place it holds for our industry and the many people who look forward to it each year," he said.

Pickens underlined mounting pressure on events around New Zealand.

"Events are facing an incredibly challenging time across New Zealand and we have seen those challenges reflected in the festival in recent years," he said.

"After careful consideration, it became clear that the substantial investment required to deliver the event in its current format is no longer the best fit with the organisation's wider responsibilities."

Launched by pioneering winegrowers in 1985, when the region had just four wine companies, the festival grew alongside Marlborough's rise to global recognition for sauvignon blanc.

Wine Marlborough board chairperson Tracy Johnston said the legacy of the festival mattered but members' interests came first.

"The board has carefully considered the benefits of the festival alongside the significant investment and resources required to deliver it, and our wider responsibilities to the Marlborough wine industry," she said.

"This gives us an opportunity to focus our activity on delivering value to members, while exploring alternative ways for the festival's legacy to continue."

Escaping a world of "dysregulation and overwhelm"

There will be a new reason to visit Hobart's Museum of Old and New Art from November. 

Zia McCabe, one of the founding members of American rock band The Dandy Warhols, will reveal a new musical installation in Tasmania.

SEE HEAR NOW will take the form of an "ambient sound-filled, earth-toned, mid-century lounge that responds to visitor interactions". 

As visitors engage with different works in the space, each touch will transform the objects into instruments -producing overlapping soundscapes and reinforcing the relationship between movement, attention, and listening.

The musical component of the exhibition is a non-linear sonata composed by keyboardist McCabe with the support of Tamil Rogeon and Louise Woodward (the duo behind The Dandy Warhols’ symphonic arrangements). The sonata features near-infinite variations that will always sound in harmony, regardless of which combinations are playing.

One of the unique aspects of the musical creation is the unusual marriage of McCabe’s analogue psychedelic synth, and classical instrumentation performed by Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra musicians.

Recorded and mixed at Mona’s Frying Pan Studios by head producer and engineer Chris Townend, the sonata’s different sequences will be connected to the lounge's various artworks, which have been designed by McCabe with visual artists Buckley, James Lambert, Madeleine Stamer and Chaz Barrisson of The London Police.

"I’ve only recently become committed to making installations through the lens of music," McCabe says. 

"But this concept came to me years ago during an open house of a creative space I was renting. During a visit to Mona last year, I was so moved by the incredible artworks, I couldn't help but pitch my own.

"What a dream to have my idea accepted and see it come to life. I am so happy to be featuring some of my favourite visual artists in this space and to know I am offering a unique room for visitors to briefly escape this world of dysregulation and overwhelm. 

"Giving their nervous systems a break, in a way that is still interactive and unpredictable, more psychedelic than opiate, more retro than modern, more harmony than discord."

The Dandy Warhols will launch their next tour of Australia with a performance at the Odeon in Hobart on Tuesday, November 24. 

See mona.net.au

Image: Lauren Krohn

Bangkok greets new hotel brand making its Asian debut

Looking to enjoy Bangkok on a budget? 

After opening in Alice Springs this week, greet, Accor's economy hotel brand, has made its Asia debut with the opening of greet Bangkok Sukhumvit 16 Jono. 

The 65-room hotel brings greet's no-frills offering in an appealing location on Sukhumvit Soi 16, close to Asok BTS Station and Sukhumvit MRT Station. 

That means easy connections to Bangkok's key business districts, shopping destinations and entertainment areas. Benjakitti Park, one of the city's largest green spaces, is also nearby.

The hotel's shared Feel Good Space features lounge seating, a co-working area and a library corner where guests can work, unwind or connect. A 24-hour front desk provides added convenience throughout the stay.

The hotel offers four room categories: Pop Deep Sleep Room, Pop Art Room, Pop Recharge Room and Pop RechargeX Room. 

Each room accommodates up to two guests and is designed around greet's essentials including a king-size bed, reliable wifi, and a shower.

Garth Simmons, Accor’s region Chief Operating Officer, said: "The debut of greet in Asia reflects the growing demand for hospitality that is refreshingly uncomplicated, delivering the feel-good essentials that make every stay genuinely comfortable at a price that makes sense. 

"Bangkok is the ideal starting point for greet's regional journey. As one of Asia's most dynamic travel destinations, the city offers a compelling opportunity to introduce a brand that helps a new generation of travellers feel good through comfort, quality and exceptional value.”

Dan Bergstén, General Manager of greet Bangkok Sukhumvit 16 Jono, said: “We look forward to welcoming guests to a relaxed and friendly hotel designed around the things that matter most. From our comfortable rooms and welcoming shared spaces to our central Sukhumvit location, every element has been considered to help guests feel good throughout their stay.”

For more information or to make a reservation, please visit: https://all.accor.com/hotel/C7B4/index.en.shtml