Your summer plans and beyond have been FIGured out!
The last 12-months have not been the sweetest for Adelaide Hills fig orchard Willabrand Australia. A fruit fly outbreak occurring early last year in South Australia led to extended, strict quarantine restrictions and mandatory inspections instructed by PIRSA, ultimately slowing down business for many Adelaide fresh produce farmers.
However, 2026 has turned over a new leaf for Willa Wauchope of Willabrand Australia and Glen Ewin Estate, and the Fig picking season is looking very fruitful.
“We’re still under fruit fly quarantine circumstances, but we have been working with Primary Industries, and have been following a protocol called ‘CA-33’. This protocol instructs that we can check for fruit fly and if it isn’t here over a six-week period, and that six-week period is over on the 24th of February with no traces of the fruit fly, so we are able to continue our business. We can go ahead and open the doors on the 28th, which is what we’re planning.” Willa explains with a gleeful aura.
With having plenty of notice about the protocol, Willa was able to time his inspection period accurately with the upcoming fruit picking season, and the thrill about this approaching period of activity is bursting.
“We’re really excited to see these few people back. We can see the fig fruits coming through now. So, the timing is going to be really good – it’s a surprisingly late season. We have picked in January before, and normally we would start in the first week of February. That being said, it’s not an abnormally late, but I think over the next two weeks, we’ll start to see things sort of beginning to move, and there should be a decent amount of fruit for that first weekend!”
The amazing adventure of picking figs at Willabrand is an experience that is all too sweet. The bell-shaped fig ‘fruit’ is actually an enclosed flower head containing many tiny flowers and seeds. Incredibly, they are among the juiciest, sweetest and most fragrant fruits of the late summer season and beyond, with many different types to discover. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect about the product is what they are used as an ingredient in, including: Jams, preserves, skincare products, and numerous alcoholic beverages.
“We have got a new one – well, I’m just waiting on the label, it is a fig and coffee liqueur – it’s really good. We use a local coffee roaster ‘The Coffee Barun’, and they’re all single origin beans. Interestingly, we do it differently to other people, we’re extracting the coffee from whole beans. We don’t crush the beans and this way you get a very natural flavour; you get this really amazing strong scent of the coffee.”
The esteemed “Sunday Sessions” are a wildly adored attraction of the Glen Ewin Estate and Willabrand Australia, with extra entertainment potentially on the cards for the possible 2026 version of the events and into the future. The famed desserts, gins and jams are assuredly favourites of the experience, but as Willa discloses, there is certainly more on the horizon.
“We’ve just recently been approved a license to do some 600-700 person events up here. We have not yet booked those things in, but the doors have opened for us to be able to do that. So, there are the ‘bigger events’ that we’re planning. At this stage the ‘Gin Fest’, which comes around in June is an obvious one, but we will definitely do some music events, because I’ve personally loved doing that sort of stuff, and it’s fun. We just want to be able to do things that are interesting and help people have a good day out.”
There is still more in the pipeline too, with ventures into whiskeys (“the advertising campaign has a slightly playful working title called ‘Frisky’.” Willa divulges with an infectious laugh) and non-alcoholic beverages that will “expand the demographic”.
The most exciting prospect though, is the extended length of this fantastic “fig season”.
“Essentially, it’s the whole of March, the last weekend in February, and then maybe the second weekend in April. I’m also planning, at this point, to maybe do something for that Easter weekend.”
Willabrand Australia has your next venture picked and FIGured out.
WillaBrand Fig Picking and Sunday Sessions at Glen Ewin Estate
Where: 43 Lower Hermitage Rd, Lower Hermitage SA 5131
Open: Every Sunday 5pm to 9pm
For more information, click here.
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