The City of Sydney estimated that 20,000 visitors attended the event over Saturday and Sunday, which included food, wine, music, cooking demonstrations and the festival’s first sculpture garden. 

Mr Stein said the tasting included the biggest contingent of food producers, wine producers, artists and sculptors that Mudgee had yet taken to the festival.

“It’s great to showcase what great wine, food and art Mudgee can produce,” he said.

This year’s festival is the culmination of a three-year agreement between Mudgee and Pyrmont, which has seen the celebration grow with a twin focus on Pyrmont restaurants and Mudgee wines.

As well as taking a taste of Mudgee’s produce to Sydney, Mr Stein said the tasting allowed Mudgee people to sell the region.

“People ask how far it is, and we tell them it’s only three and a half hours away and there are cellar doors, accommodation, restaurants, art, and many, many natural attractions for couples and families to visit,” he said. 

He said the publicity for the 2013 festival had been the broadest it had ever seen, and he believed the festival, which continues every day through to this weekend with dinners and lunches serving Mudgee wine, was Mudgee’s biggest promotional event of the year.

“I think the success of this will lead us to a good working relationship to expand and broaden the collaboration and co-operation between the Mudgee region and the Pyrmont precinct,” Mr Stein said.

“Looking to the future, the Mudgee Wine Grape Growers Association’s aim is to enhance this project with further financial support from other stakeholders in the Mudgee region.”

The event has grown significantly since 3,500 attended the first one-day public tasting in the park.

“As a first event, I think it was very good numbers, and gave us the determination to move forward,” Mr Stein said.

Over the three years the event has been held, he said it had promoted Mudgee’s food and produce not only to guests, but to the restaurants and bottle shops of the Pyrmont precinct, many of which now permanently stock Mudgee wine.

He thanked the 20-odd wineries and cellar doors that participated, as well as the food producers that supported the event, Milnes of Mudgee, Olive.a.Twist, Gooree wagyu beef, the Grape Alternative and Linda’s Red Hot Sweet Chilli Relish. 

Mr Stein thanked the City of Sydney for its financial support and Thinc Marketing and Gabrielle Brewer for their organisation and promotion of Mudgee’s part in the festival.

“Most importantly, I’d like to thank the people who came down and helped, workers who volunteered their time to help spread the word about the Mudgee region,” he said.