Five local award winning wineries, a highly decorated guesthouse, a great regional restaurant and a drone video business are the stars of PLONK, an online comedy series about wine and the goings on of a dysfunctional take on a TV wine show, that debuted yesterday.

The series follows the trials and tribulations of a feckless television crew as they travel through NSW trying to produce a unique, engaging and credible wine program. Playing comedic caricatures of themselves, the ensemble cast includes Chris Taylor (The Chaser) as the show’s celebrity front man, Nathan Earl as the producer struggling to juggle investors’ dollars and talent expectations, and Josh Tyler, “The Expert”.

Each episode will capture a different NSW wine destination, and it starts with the Capital wine region – not ‘technically’ in the ACT, but close enough to be claimed as our own. Tasked with including some local female winemakers as part of their brief, the Plonk crew kick off their NSW wine adventure in  Murrumbateman. What follows is an hilarious behind-the-scenes look at tv production, featuring some familiar faces!

Well known wine identities, Ken Helm of Helm Wines, Nick Spencer of Eden Road Wines and Australian Winemaker of the Year, Clonakilla’s Tim Kirk, show they’re not afraid to poke fun at themselves, and husband and wife team Bill and Jamie Crowe of Four Winds Winery also show ‘star quality’.

Other local businesses featuring in the show’s “Canberra Region” episode include: Capital Wines, Grazing, Country Guesthouse Schonegg and White Knight Unmanned Aerial Systems, who provided the aerial footage and travelled with the crew for all five episodes.

The second episode was released this morning, with a new instalment unveiled each day until Friday 14 February. The five episode series will focus on NSW wine districts and is supported by Destination NSW. PLONK the comedy series is online at www.youtube.com/roadtoplonk

MEET THE STAR OF PLONK (the wine region, that is!)

The Summerside Festival is on until 2 March, and is full of dining events celebrating local and seasonal produce, opportunities to taste the best of the region’s wines and innovative, exciting performances, events and exhibitions. Check the website for a full program. It’s all happening until Sunday 2 March. 

And if you want to meet some of the winemakers themselves, every Friday in February, East Hotel is playing host to a number of local wineries. From 5pm, a handful of the region’s finest wineries ( Four Winds Vineyard, Capital Wines, Mount Majura Vineyard, Collector, Lerida Estate, Wily Trout and Eden Road Wines) are heading to Kingston to peddle their wares the old fashioned way; taste and talk.