![Albury's Charlotte Small and Tierre Lindner enjoy their time at Pfieffer Wines as part of the 2024 Roam Rutherglen Winery Walkabout on Sunday, June 9. Picture by James Wiltshire Albury's Charlotte Small and Tierre Lindner enjoy their time at Pfieffer Wines as part of the 2024 Roam Rutherglen Winery Walkabout on Sunday, June 9. Picture by James Wiltshire](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/beau.greenway/9593ecda-313d-4cc0-859a-805bdc3f6fc9.JPG/r0_0_6000_4000_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Albury, Wodonga, Melbourne, and even Adelaide.
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The 2024 Roam Rutherglen Winery Walkabout certainly didn't fail to draw a crowd.
More than 7000 people made their way to 16 Rutherglen region wineries on June 8 and 9, many of them lapping up the party atmosphere at Pfeiffer Wines.
Winemaker Jen Pfeiffer was delighted with the colourfully dressed turnout, which included everything from Barbie to 101 Dalmatians-inspired outfits.
"We're really pleased with the crowd and really pleased with how everyone's behaving and having a great time," she said.
"At Pfeiffer's, we really do embrace it. We love the Winery Walkabout festival and we're so proud to be part of something that's been going for 50 years.
"We love the atmosphere and seeing the effort everyone goes to in terms of the costumes and the dress-ups. There's been some ladies who have been head to toe in glitter and yesterday (Saturday) we had a guy in a full Bluey suit.
"Everyone's here to have a great time and we really love being part of that and contributing to a really fun, but safe environment.
"How we look at it is we were all this age at one point in time and wanting to go out and have a great time. We would like to think that if someone's parents had come here they'd say 'my kids are at Pfeiffer's, and I know that they're going to be looked after'.
"That's really important to us because these guys in a couple of months or a couple of years will hopefully say, 'I remember going to Rutherglen and I remember going to Winery Walkabout that I had the best time, and I want to go back there'."
![Melbourne's Jem Price and Anna Williams with Yarrawonga's Molly Zanin and Wodonga's Zoe Lopez having a great time at Pfeiffer Wines during the 2024 Roam Rutherglen Winery Walkabout. Picture by James Wiltshire Melbourne's Jem Price and Anna Williams with Yarrawonga's Molly Zanin and Wodonga's Zoe Lopez having a great time at Pfeiffer Wines during the 2024 Roam Rutherglen Winery Walkabout. Picture by James Wiltshire](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/beau.greenway/418d30d8-ae98-4db0-b7bb-b21d25095fa1.JPG/r0_0_5741_3827_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Ms Pfeiffer said the festival was always a great promotion for Rutherglen and surrounds.
"All of the businesses, accommodation, food vendors, shops in the main street all have their biggest weekends of the year," she said.
"The economic benefit to the region is so important and you've got to think of those bigger things as well."
Genevieve Porter travelled with friends from Adelaide for the weekend and enjoyed her first Winery Walkabout experience with visits to Pfeiffer, Cofield and All Saints.
"We heard about it through a friend and thought 'why not come over?'," she said.
![Kirrily Jackson, Zoe Oster, Jessica Heaslip and Genevieve Porter made the long trip from Adelaide for the 2024 Roam Rutherglen Winery Walkabout. Picture by James Wiltshire Kirrily Jackson, Zoe Oster, Jessica Heaslip and Genevieve Porter made the long trip from Adelaide for the 2024 Roam Rutherglen Winery Walkabout. Picture by James Wiltshire](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/beau.greenway/e459f4e6-f429-4306-bdd2-d7280a6850b9.JPG/r0_0_6000_4000_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
"There's a similar event on this weekend around the Clare Valley (in South Australia) but you don't really get dressed up like this. This is more of a party."
Mooroopna's Anna Williams also enjoyed her first time at the event.
"I live in Melbourne now and all the Melbourne kids want to come up here, it's such a great thing," she said.
"If we can get an invite, we're there."
The 50th anniversary celebration of Roam Rutherglen Winery Walkabout attracted more than 9000 people in 2023.