Wine Machine at Serafino Wines Review
17th December 2022
By James Murphy
The weather gods smiled upon Wine Machine this year, having previously been plagued by lightning strikes and mudslides, with one of McLaren Vale’s most idyllic wineries, Serafino Wines, was bathed in sunshine. By late afternoon, upwards of 4000 punters dressed in their TikTok fits had wandered past Serafino’s lake and cellar door and entered the Gluttony-run gates, with more anticipated for the late evening set by headliners, Flight Facilities.
Wine Machine is pitched as a food, wine and music festival, meaning that the tunes on the main stage were not always central to the experience. There were shaded zones with plush leather couches to escape the UV rays, a cellar door, food trucks, and The Goonies VIP area, complete with a Beauty Bar stocked with moisturizers, sunscreen and jars of gum drops and sour snakes. The Opening DJ acts, Happiness is Wealth and Mell Hall then, had the unenviable task of dropping bangers to empty dance floors, while festival goers got their wine on. It’s a shame these opening sets weren’t reserved for local artists to warm up the stage.
After a few hours of white wine in the sun, though, the crowd was ready from Tasmanian two-piece, Sumner, fronted by the enigmatic and heavily tatted woodland nymph, Chloe Wilson. With their new single, ‘Desire’ penned with Pnau, added to Triple J full rotation, the pair look set to explode with their summer anthems. Armed with their first new album in 7 years, Big Overdrive, former Triple J chart topping three piece Art vs Science lured fans out from under the shade with their mega-hit, ‘Parlez Vous Francais? Aside from headliners, Flight Facilities, all acts were restricted to 40-45 minute sets, which felt limiting, particularly for the more established artists, like Art vs Science, who have not toured extensively in recent times, as well as San Cisco and Lime Cordiale. Such tight runtimes limited the capacity for artists to engage with crowd between songs and makes it harder to balance new material with the hits and crowd-pleasing covers.
San Cisco’s syncopated syllable call and response chorus on ‘Awkward’ in the late-afternoon sun was peak summertime. Like Lime Cordiale, San Cisco are between album cycles, but the former are gearing up to new release with the release of their single ‘Facts of Life’, which featured alongside hits like ‘Screw Loose’ and ‘No Plans To Make Plans’. By the time the band took the stage in their Sgt Pepper meets mariachi band stage attire, Serafino had descended into a Sea and Vines festival vibe. With the sun set, the lights and music of Cut Copy and Flight Facilities were met by a raucously messy crowd, with proceedings ending at a respectable 10 PM, allowing the crowd to return home before turning into a hungover pumpkin.
In a music festival saturated market, Wine Machine is now wedged between Harvest and Heaps Good in Adelaide and was scheduled the week before Christmas. It was a festival that ticked all the boxes but which may need slightly tweak its lineup curation to stand out from the currently crowded pack.
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