How a regional festival went from a ‘fun party’ to helicopters in the Hills
A festival designed to promote one of SA’s top culinary regions in the wake of the 2019 Cudlee Creek bushfire has become a major drawcard. This year, the founder expects to multiply her visitor numbers by ten.
How many other festivals boast helicopter tours of Adelaide’s beautiful Hills as a key attraction?
A Taste of the Hills has since become one of the state’s fastest-growing food and wine festivals since it started in 2023 after the double-whammy impact of the 2019 Cuddlee Creek bushfire and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Founder Holly Stratton, 34, has taken the event from her family’s backyard in the Hills with a debut crowd of 600 to a wildly popular festival.
She expects more than 6000 people to attend this year’s event on March 28 and 29, and says ticket sales are 900 per cent more this year than they were at the same time in 2025.
“I had the idea to bring everyone together and have a backyard party and showcase the region and give them a platform to bounce back a bit and get people into the Adelaide Hills to enjoy produce,” Stratton told CityMag.
“Instead of going on a wine tour where people go from location to location, we’ll actually bring everyone together at one place.
You might like
“It was never meant to be a festival; it was just going to be a fun party.”
But the South Australian Tourism Commission caught a whiff of Taste of the Hills, and encouraged Stratton to apply for the regional events fund.
Stratton said she was surprised to get funding, which allowed her to scale up the event, and meant 2000 people attended in the festival’s second year, hosted at Hans Heysen – The Cedars in Hahndorf.
Since then, the festival has moved each year – in 2025, A Taste of the Hills took over Lot 100, and she added about 50 more vendors.
This year, Lenswood Memorial Park will host more than 70 Adelaide Hills producers and makers.
Subscribe for updates
This includes wineries like VINTERLOPER, Golding Wines and Hesketh Wines; distillers like Lenswood Cider Co and Five Eleven Distilling; and food producers like Tarong Almonds and Uraidla Bakery.
A dedicated Family Day on Sunday will let kids’ imaginations run wild with a Kid Zone offering arts and crafts, interactive activities and nature play.
But for the adults attending, there’s no shortage of experiences beyond the wine and food tastings.
This includes the centrepiece experience: a helicopter ride above the rolling Adelaide Hills.
Anyone who purchases the $119 helicopter flight also gets access to the ‘helicopter lounge’, a free drink included.
“It’s not just taste as in mouth taste,” she said.
“It’s a taste of the region. It’s a taste of the businesses that we’ve got here.
“We’ve got picnic rugs, we’ve got really nice lounges, we’ve got day beds. You can get a bottle of wine or ice cream or some doughnuts and you can sit in the sunshine or under the gum trees, listen to music and have a really lovely day out.”
A Taste of the Hills runs from 28 to 29 March.
Want to see more stories from InDaily SA in your Google search results?
- Click here to set InDaily SA as a preferred source.
- Tick the box next to "InDaily SA". That's it.
