My wife was given a couple of wine tour passes for her birthday and I was more than happy to join her in the lovely Yarra Valley. After a quick coffee on Spring street, we were met by a van and Rocko, the tour guide, hopped out, opened the door and led us into the van. We made brief introductions upon the prompt of our guide and headed out of the city. A friendly tour guide, check.
Our first stop was Domaine Chandon, for a nice bubbly hit to crack off the day. The tasting was paired with goat cheese and fig biscuits and included one glass of our choice amongst the four sparklings available. We opted for the sparkling rosé and the sparkling red, which were dry and interesting and a bit overly sweet respectively. The stop included a nice tour of the grounds and a bit of history of the development of champagne as well as the whole process involved in its creation.
The next stop was at Train Track and that was easily the favourite. On our way up, our great guide have a little history of the vineyard and mentioned that it's a boutique vineyard. We started with a nice fixed menu of charcuteries and roquette salad and finished with fresh pizza from the wood oven. All was delicious and heartily eaten. Afterwards, we tasted from light to dark and were particularly taken with the pinot noir. This place is definitely one to return to.
After Train Track, we headed to Yering to try their wares. At this point, the crowd was a bit rowdy and the history/local info took a bit of a back seat as a necessity of intoxication. The vineyard was charming albeit without a moose on the wall and the staff were doing a bit of blind tasting, which was amusing. We tried our best to try out way through the first two pages but missed a few glasses. As a general statement, the red offerings were rather citrusy in the finish.
Lastly, and certainly a bit more friendly and full of cheer, we rocked on up to De Bortoli which is one of the larger and more commercial vineyards, as per our guide. This one was neat in the that there was a fromagerie upon entry. One of the Americans had an epiphany as to why the expression "to cut the cheese" exists to great elation. The wines were all in all pretty tasty, but our palates were a bit shot, so that might not be the greatest assessment. Rocko was very patient and didn't get cross with having to wrangle a bunch of tipsy wine tourists, which added to the overall experience considerably.
The rest of the trip was a simple drive back into the city to be dropped off at various lodgings and the casino for us. All in all, a lovely wine tour and day. read more