This weekend the winery celebrates 50 years since original owners Edgar Riek and his wife Mary planted their first vines. It's a milestone that will be celebrated on what would have been Edgar Riek's 101st birthday and involves Mary Riek and the rest of the family, who have chosen a ginkgo tree to be planted at the winery to commemorate the event.

The team at the vineyard's restaurant, Westering has also pulled out all of the stops for a dinner matched with wines not only from Lake George Winery but from other wineries that have a connection to Edgar Riek.

"We've gone through Ken Helm's wine museum and we've picked out two museum wines to pour. Of course, Ken knew Edgar from when they worked at the CSIRO together," McDougall says.

"We have also asked Eden Road who own Cullarin Block 71, which is the vineyard next door to us and is the original vineyard that Edgar and Mary planted. We're pouring one of their one from their 50-year-old vines.

"As well as that, we've gone to our own museums."

The event will kick off what McDougall is calling a Festival of 50. As the first winery in the area, Lake George Winery - along with Clonakilla and Helm Wines - kicked off the Canberra district, and therefore, the coming years will see multiple 50th anniversaries come to pass.

It's part of the reason why McDougall wanted to open up to the event to the entire district.

"Edgar and John Kirk from Clonakilla - not knowing each other at CSIRO - were just planting vines, thinking Canberra district was an amazing area to plant vines," she says.

"In the 70s, it wouldn't have been easy either. It was just a bit of fun and they didn't know what the future would look like; it was a bit of trial and error with different varietals. I think it's important to nod to that past, but also nod to the future."

Part of the celebrations will continue later on in the year when Lake George Winery releases Edgar's Press.

The special release was a gift from Mary Riek and the rest of the Riek family, who still have a close connection with the winery.

"They gave us some barrels of Edgar's muscat, so we're talking 20-plus year barrels of muscat," McDougall says.

"So we've brought them back to the winery and we're going to make something special called Edgar's Press, so it's a little bottle of a fortified muscat. We won't have it ready by our dinner, but we're naming it in Edgar's honour and we'll release it later in the year when it's ready. But just to have that musket is just priceless."

The Lake George Winery Celebrating 50 dinner will be on Saturday from 4pm. Tickets from $90.76 from Eventbrite.

One of the better things to come out of COVID was Three Mills Bakery's pivot to selling frozen pastries that people could bake in their home ovens.

Twelve months on, not only are we back buying their delish baked goods in-store, but we're still loving that at home Three Mills experience. Luckily, the Bake At Home range is now available in more places.

The bakery's two best-selling products - croissants and chocolate croissants - will be available in selected grocery stores across Canberra by the end of the month.

Head to threemillsbakery.com.au for the full list of stockists.

Siren Bar's executive chef Darren Perryman and Brand & Sons Wines chief winemaker Sam Brand will be hosting a wine dinner at Siren on Thursday from 6.30pm.

The Brand family have been making wine in the Coonawarra, South Australia since 1950 and Brand is the fourth-generation winemaker. He brings with him an array of wines with a focus on the red varieties, which the region is so famous for. Chef Darren will perfectly match the wines with a hearty three-course offering.

Tickets are $112.96 from Eventbrite.

The humble meat pie is the quintessential icon of Australian cuisine, and this April, Sonoma will be vying for the most delicious iteration with the launch of a beer and beef pie, made in collaboration with the brewery Young Henry's.

The pie is part of a new hot and savoury range celebrating flaky, delicious, and hot pastry items in time for the winter months.

Sonoma will also add a new sausage roll made with pork seasoned with a unique blend of spice and herbs and a filling of apples and carrots which together add notes of tartness and sweetness. For the vegetarians, there's a curried veggie sausage roll, made with potatoes, chickpeas, lentils, and spinach.

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