W is for Weekend, W is for Wine

Martyn had very kindly offered to take me out and about over the weekend to see whatever, I wanted to in th Melbourne hinterland, and I opted to explore some of the gastronomy of the region. The Yarra Valley is world famous for its wines, but there was also a lesser known area, Mornington Peninsular that sported many boutique vineyards and some creameries making cheeses. With a name like Mornington, any fan of “I'm Sorry I Havent a Clue”, simply has to head there. The drive took us through scenery that reminded me of UK – pine and deciduous trees as well as the gum trees, edged fields of sheep or cattle and grass crops harvest gold in colour. The hills rolled. It was a very different feel to sub tropical Brisbane with its palms. Melbourne has a temperate climate with 4 seasons. Its sometimes said that you can get all 4 seasons in one day, just like UK. However, the temperature was high 20's and aa lot nicer than UK, even comparing it against the same season – end of summer, beginning of autumn.

We headed to a creamery in Red Hill where we weren't disappointed and bought several of their artisan cheeses to enjoy later in the week. In fact for the first time ever, I bought a goats cheese, which really appealed to me. Usually they make me gag. Opposite was a small Vineyard, that we went to and sampled some of it offerings – a little on the young side was our opinion, and a bit acidic. Interestingly, when we stopped a couple of miles down the road and sampled some wines of the same grape varieties and vintage (2010 & 11) they were acceptable, with more rounded flavours. Only goes to show that its worth sampling a few before making a decision as to what to buy.

I also wanted to find a brewery as all of the Aussie beer I had sampled to date was weak and feeble gnats piss. I felt that somewhere in an area of such good wines there must have been a decent beer. Unfortunately the micro brewery we found was not open to tourist for another 3 weeks, and the owner quite rudely turned us away.

Still onward and upward, we literally went upward to a beauty spot called Arthurs Seat where we could look down through woods onto the peninsular.

We had theatre tickets for that evening back in Melbourne so our outing was short but sweet, but still very enjoyable.

Back in Melbourne we met friends of Martyn for dinner and then went to see 'The Other Place' which was a very clever play addressing topical mental health problems. This was my first glimpse of Central Melbourne, and I just loved what I saw, especially the very clever architecture of Federation Square.

Sunday was the day for getting down to the serious business of The Yarra Valley. The Yarra is the river that runs through Melbourne, and The Valley produces some world class wines. We first visited Rochford Winery, where there was a small market selling fresh produce, preserves, crafts and fruit juices. Very much along the same lines of our Farmers markets but somehow so much better in the hot climate. The wine tasting at the winery was excellent - so much better than yesterday. We bought some to enjoy with yesterdays cheese later in the week. We then went in search of a brewery, but overshot it and found ourselves at the Balgownie vineyard, which Martyn said was excellent. It didn't disappoint. The somelier was a master of his trade and seemed to enjoy our discussions with him. He even started pouring samples of some of the better spatlese style wines that were not intended for free tastings for us. Our next stop was a dairy that did a good bread and cheese platter to soak up the wine tastings …......... ok there were spitoons available but where's the fun in that?!

We did find the Hargreaves Brewery afterwards and partook of their taster paddle. This is an ingenious way of sampling a little of everything without leaving the pub bankrupt. For about £5 you get a wooden tray with 6 holes in it (a paddle) with small glasses, maybe around 75 ml capacity, like a double shot glass with different beers in them. The first 3 beers were typical Aus, thin and flavourless, but the same was not the case for the others and the final one was a very pleasing dark beer reminiscent of Olde Peculiar. Sadly the distribution area for micro breweries is not large, as is the case anywhere.

It was a very happy and well wined Suzie that Martyn took home that evening.