Traditions to come alive at Cyprus Food & Wine Festival – The Greek Herald

The Cyprus Community of NSW will bring more than five millennia of winemaking history, treasured family recipes, music, dance and the unmistakable warmth of Cypriot hospitality to Eastlakes when the Cyprus Food & Wine Festival returns on Sunday, 28 June 2026.

The aromas of charcoal-roasted souvla, freshly grilled halloumi, sheftalies and traditional Cypriot sweets will fill the air as one of Sydney’s most vibrant celebrations of Cypriot and Greek culture transforms Eastlakes Sports Club into a lively village festival.

Presented by the Cyprus Community of NSW, with Brydens Lawyers as the Festival’s major sponsor, the free celebration will run from 12:00 pm until 8:00 pm.

Visitors will be welcomed with traditional food and drink, live music in the platia, Greek and Cypriot dancing, cooking demonstrations, market stalls, children’s entertainment and cultural activities for the entire family.

The Festival, however, is about far more than enjoying good food and wine. It is about preserving a way of life and continuing a cultural and community tradition that has been celebrated in New South Wales for generations.

A Sydney tradition spanning more than half a century

The roots of the Cyprus Community of NSW’s food and wine celebrations extend back to the late 1950s, when community members gathered to share traditional dishes, homemade wine, music and dancing.

For newly arrived migrants, these early gatherings offered an opportunity to reconnect with the customs of their homeland while introducing Australian friends and neighbours to the food, culture and hospitality of Cyprus.

By the early 1970s, the celebrations had developed into a more formally organised Food and Wine Festival. Over the decades, the event grew from an intimate community gathering into one of Australia’s longest-running community-organised celebrations of Cypriot food, wine and culture.

For more than 50 years, generations of volunteers, cooks, musicians, dancers, community organisations and family businesses have helped sustain the Festival.

It has endured changing venues, changing generations and periods of interruption, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Its longevity reflects the strength of the Cyprus Community of NSW and its continuing commitment to preserving Cypriot culture while sharing it with the wider Australian public.

The Festival also draws inspiration from Cyprus’ celebrated Limassol Wine Festival, first held in 1961. That event revived the spirit of much older Greek celebrations associated with Dionysus, the god of wine, the vine, theatre, fertility and communal festivity.

Sydney’s Festival carries that spirit into an Australian setting, combining the traditions of the Cypriot village paniyiri with the multicultural character of modern Sydney.

Ancient roots in the festivals of Dionysus

The cultural roots of wine festivals reach deep into the ancient Greek world, where wine was closely connected with agriculture, religion, theatre, music and public life.

Dionysus was honoured through a series of festivals known collectively as the Dionysia. These were not simply occasions for drinking wine. They were important religious, cultural and civic gatherings that celebrated the changing seasons, the cultivation of the vine and the transformation of grapes into wine.

The Rural Dionysia were held in agricultural communities and brought villagers together through processions, music, dancing, feasting and dramatic performances.

These celebrations allowed farming communities to give thanks for the harvest, taste the season’s wine and share the produce of the land.

Another festival, the Anthesteria, marked the opening of the wine jars containing the previous year’s vintage. Over several days, communities tasted the new wine, offered libations and celebrated the arrival of spring.

The most famous of these events was the Great, or City, Dionysia in Athens. It became one of the ancient Greek world’s greatest cultural festivals, attracting citizens and visitors from throughout the Hellenic world.

Its programme included public processions, choral performances and competitions in tragedy and comedy. Works by some of antiquity’s greatest playwrights, including Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes, were presented as part of celebrations honouring Dionysus.

These festivals demonstrate that, within Greek culture, food, wine, music, dancing and theatre were never entirely separate. Together, they created a communal experience through which people celebrated nature, creativity, identity and belonging.

Cyprus shared deeply in this ancient Mediterranean culture of vines, mythology and public celebration.

At the House of Dionysus in Paphos, magnificent Roman-era mosaics depict scenes from Greek mythology associated with Dionysus, wine and celebration.

Among them is the story of Dionysus introducing wine to humanity, accompanied by the words Oi Protoi Oinopiontes — “the first wine drinkers.”

The mosaics demonstrate that wine in Cyprus was never merely an agricultural product. It was connected with mythology, ceremony, storytelling, hospitality, trade and cultural life.

As Christianity became established throughout Cyprus, ancient religious celebrations gradually gave way to saints’ days, church feasts and village paniyiria.

The religious meaning changed, but many familiar cultural elements endured: families gathering in public squares, sharing food and wine, listening to music, dancing and welcoming visitors.

The modern Cyprus Food & Wine Festival continues these traditions in a contemporary and inclusive form.

It is not a recreation of an ancient religious ceremony. Rather, it preserves the enduring values that gave those early gatherings their importance — gratitude for the land, respect for the harvest, cultural performance, generosity and community.

Food, family and philoxenia

For Greek Cypriots, the family table has always been one of the most important places in the home. It is where stories are shared, relationships are strengthened, visitors are welcomed and traditions are passed from one generation to the next.

The Greek ideal of philoxenia — the generous and heartfelt welcome offered to a guest — is deeply embedded in Cypriot life. A visitor is rarely allowed to leave a Cypriot home without first being offered food, Greek coffee, fruit, sweets, wine or something from the family pantry.

The long and generous Cypriot meze is perhaps the clearest expression of this philosophy. Rather than a single meal served quickly, meze is a procession of shared dishes intended to encourage conversation, friendship and time together.

Halloumi, olives, tahini, village bread, koupes, koupepia, sheftalies, lountza, grilled meats, salads and seasonal vegetables arrive gradually at the table.

The experience is not simply about eating. It is about participating in family and community life.

This tradition forms part of the wider Greek and Mediterranean way of living, in which preparing and sharing food strengthens cultural identity and brings generations together.

More than 5,000 years of Cypriot wine

Cyprus possesses one of the world’s oldest documented winemaking traditions, with archaeological evidence indicating that wine was being produced on the island approximately 5,500 years ago.

Excavations in the Limassol district, including at Erimi and Pyrgos, uncovered ancient clay vessels, grape remains and evidence of wine production dating to approximately 3500 BCE.

Cyprus’ position at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East allowed its wines to travel along ancient Mediterranean trade routes. Cypriot wine was transported in amphorae and traded with neighbouring civilisations, establishing the island as an important centre of viticulture and commerce.

Ancient Cypriots also produced a sweet wine from grapes left to ripen and dry beneath the Mediterranean sun. Known as nama, it became highly prized throughout the region. This sun-drying tradition would later provide the foundation for Cyprus’ most famous wine: Commandaria.

Commandaria: the wine of kings

A defining chapter in Cyprus’ wine history occurred during the Crusader period.

When Richard the Lionheart arrived in Cyprus in 1191, a sweet local wine was reportedly served at his wedding to Berengaria of Navarre in Limassol. The wine later became associated with the celebrated description, “the wine of kings and the king of wines.”

The Knights Templar and, subsequently, the Knights of St John controlled estates near Kolossi Castle in the Limassol district.

Their administrative headquarters became known as the Grande Commanderie. The surrounding wine-producing region took the name Commandaria, and its celebrated sweet wine was exported to royal courts and markets throughout Europe.

Produced from the indigenous Mavro and Xynisteri grape varieties, which are ripened and dried in the sun before fermentation, Commandaria is recognised as one of the world’s oldest named wines still in production.

Its survival across centuries of conquest and political change reflects the resilience of the Cypriot people themselves.

Survival, decline and renewal

Cyprus’ wine industry experienced periods of prosperity and hardship under successive foreign rulers.

During the Ottoman period, heavy taxation and restrictions contributed to a decline in large-scale production. Nevertheless, winemaking survived in village homes, vineyards and monasteries, where knowledge was quietly passed from one generation to the next.

The industry was revived under British administration from the late 19th century. Larger commercial producers emerged, and Cypriot wine found new export markets throughout Britain and Europe.

For much of the 20th century, the industry concentrated on bulk wines, fortified wines and Cyprus “sherry.” When traditional export markets declined, the island’s producers were forced to reconsider their direction.

From the 1980s, Cyprus began moving away from mass production and towards quality, regional identity and boutique winemaking. A new generation of winemakers and oenologists rediscovered the value of the island’s native grape varieties and the distinctive qualities of its mountain vineyards.

Today, Cypriot producers are creating internationally respected wines from indigenous varieties including the white Xynisteri and the red Maratheftiko, Mavro and Yiannoudi.

Cyprus also escaped the phylloxera epidemic that devastated many European vineyards during the 19th century. As a result, the island retains old, ungrafted vines that connect modern winemaking directly with its ancient agricultural heritage.

The modern renaissance of Cypriot wine is therefore not a rejection of the past. It is a renewal of it.

From Limassol to Sydney

The Limassol Wine Festival, established in 1961, remains Cyprus’ largest public celebration of wine and the grape harvest. Traditionally held in the Limassol Municipal Gardens, it brings people together through local wine, traditional food, folk dancing, live music and communal celebration.

Its cultural roots are associated with the ancient festivals of Dionysus, when communities gathered to taste new wine, share food, perform music and dance, and give thanks for the harvest.

The Cyprus Food & Wine Festival in Sydney continues that spirit thousands of kilometres from the island. It allows Cypriot Australians to celebrate customs inherited from their parents and grandparents while inviting the broader Australian community to join them.

For one day, Eastlakes Sports Club will become a modern Cypriot platia – a meeting place where families gather, children dance, musicians perform, traditional foods are prepared and visitors are welcomed as friends.

In this way, the Festival is not simply a recreation of something left behind. It is a living Australian expression of Cypriot and Greek culture.

Recipes carried across the world

Festival-goers will be able to experience the breadth of Cypriot cuisine, including souvla and souvlakia cooked over charcoal, sheftalies, halloumi, koupes, koupepia, loukanika, flaounes, loukoumades, mahalepi and other traditional favourites.

Cypriot wines, Commandaria and zivania will connect the flavours of the Festival with the vineyards and mountain villages of the island.

Behind these foods are generations of Cypriot women and families who safeguarded recipes, language, customs and faith, often without written instructions. Recipes were taught by standing beside a mother or grandmother in the kitchen, with ingredients measured by sight, touch, aroma and experience.

When Cypriots migrated to Australia, those recipes travelled with them. They adapted to Australian ingredients and conditions but retained the flavours, methods and memories of the villages from which they came.

Through family kitchens, church gatherings, dances, festivals and community organisations, food became one of the most powerful ways of remaining connected to Cyprus.

Preserving culture for the next generation

Established in Sydney in 1929, the Cyprus Community of NSW has supported generations of migrants while preserving the Greek language, Cypriot traditions, dance, music, education and community life.

As the organisation moves towards its centenary in 2029, the Food & Wine Festival is looking firmly towards the future.

Young dancers, Greek School students, musicians, volunteers and emerging community leaders will play an important role in the 2026 celebration. Their involvement demonstrates that culture is not something confined to history books or museum displays. It remains alive whenever a child learns a traditional dance, speaks Greek with a grandparent, helps prepare a family recipe or welcomes a visitor to the table.

The Cyprus Food & Wine Festival is both a celebration and an act of cultural continuity.

It honours those who carried Cyprus in their hearts across the world, while inviting every Australian – regardless of background – to experience its food, wine, music, generosity and friendship.

From the ancient celebrations of Dionysus to the village paniyiria of Cyprus and the community gatherings of modern Sydney, the underlying message remains familiar: life, culture and friendship are best celebrated together.

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