Melbourne, Aus winery visit recommendations?

Will be in the Melbourne area next month, planning a day in Macedon, a day in Yarra, and a couple nights in Mornington (2 days of visiting).

I think I’ve got food sorted while in Melbourne… Any recommendations for wineries I should seek out in any of those three areas?

(fwiw, aiming for Town Mouse and Saint Crispin for dinners while in Melbourne).

You going for looks or content? (serious question) as some of the daggiest cellar doors have the best wines and vice versa.

Assuming you want to do lunch while in the region?

To be honest I’d spend an extra day in either Mornington or Yarra than Macedon or go to Heathcote instead.

Thanks again, Mr. English!

Content. Lunches, of course, if there are some I should seek out will give it a go.

Macedon: Arrive overnight so as it’s near the airport and I can’t check-in til later in Melbourne, thought I’d swing through.

2 nights in Melbourne, first full day will be a Yarra trip. This will be a Sunday so I suppose if there is a nice lunch spot I might need to book?

After that 2 nights in Mornington.

If 10 people answer you’ll probably get 10 different answers…so here is my take on it. I’ve gone fairly well known, yet doing decent stuff.

Macedon, hmmm I don’t really know of too many I can suggest, I’d stop at the Holgate Brewery in any case Make some great beers there. Apart from that, Hanging Rock would be one to visit.

For Mornington (Pinot and Chardy land) I’d probably go with the following

Main Ridge – small, old school, not sure if they will have anything on.
Moorooduc Estate – Getting really good reviews (Decanter rated their Pinot best of New World)
Paringa Estate – Nice wines, CD seems more an afterthought to the restaurant and view over the vineyard. They do a nice lunch.
Ten Minutes By Tractor – Some cracking Chardonnay and a very good place to eat, my pick of for lunch.
Kooyong/Port Phillip – very modern CD, the Kooyong side of the wines are very smart well made ones.
Yabby Lake – Not been there, but have drank plenty of their wines.

Yarra Valley, might be some driving involved getting around to the different places, so get a map and plot them out.

Yarra Yering – very old school CD, old colonial style house in an intimate atmosphere, some great wines.
Coldstream Hills – classic cool climate range. Good quality throughout the range.
Hoddles Creek – Good range, from great qpr low end stuff up to their mid range (1er range)
Yering Station – bit touristy, some nice wines, can get crowded, nice to walk around if they have some sculptures on show.
As above for De Bertoli wines who are a big company.
Mac Forbes – no CD but a shopfront in town, nice edgy wines if you are looking for where the future is heading.

Lunch, if looking for something fancy try ezard at Levantine Hill, or the one at Balgownie Estate or Oakridge Wines restaurant.

If lunching on a Sunday, definitely book. A lot have online booking available.

Awesome, thanks! Will work in what I can…

cheers…

For Macedon have a look at Cobaw Ridge. Maybe Curly Flat if you are on a weekend. Bindi is the best producer in Macedon but don’t have a cellar door

Dave’s list for the Mornington Peninsula is pretty solid. I’d add Montalto, Willow Creek, Eldridge Estate Stoniers and maybe Polpero and Foxy’s Hangout.
Yabby Lake and Moorooduc are pretty close together and a bit of a drive from the others.
IF you need beer, then Mornington Brewery and Red Hill Brewery on weekends

I know less about the Yarra, but Oakridge would be on my list there.

Thanks, Paul!

Thought I’d follow up on this in case somebody searches… or cares…

First off, the two restaurants I went to in Melbourne.

Saint Crispin. Nice place, was late as I stayed in the south and apparently there is really just one road to get across town on and it was jammed, being Saturday night. Still was able to squeeze in the 5 course tasting menu. Was nice to have the main wine guy swing by and chat a bit about the wine. Towards the end of the sitting he spent more time with us which was cool. Was busy, Saturday night I guess. So not ideal and not really when I go out to eat but pretty good, neat area and decent if a little bit busy of a setup. Doubt anybody here, but the table next to us ordered a ‘Marguax’, which I figured out was a Lucy Margaux as they couldn’t work with it and had to get something else. I kinda dig funky naturals, so thought it was amusing.

Town Mouse. Awesome. Many great wines by the glass and chatting with the Somm lady there who puts the list together, it changes every day and she has some cool stuff on it. Highly recommended for wine and food and general vibe.

Macedon

On arrival after the red-eye, headed toward Macedon for the day since it was relatively close to the airport. How else to kick off a few days off? Note: many places don’t open till noon, so if you are morning imbiber, get your fix elsewhere first.

Gisborne Peak
What’s that accent? Eh? Where did we go? Lady doing the tasting (Barbara) actually owns it with her husband… and she’s from Wisconsin. Small production, like 1800 cases. Enjoyed the Riesling and the Pinot Noir the most.

Hanging Rock
Nice place, bigger. They do a lot of the vinification for others in the area (including Gisborne). Quite a spread of things, about half is from Macedon, half sourced from fruit elsewhere. Overall good, standouts were the Macedon Sparkling, couple of ones from Heathcote as well.

Curly Flat
Awesome. Bit out of the way, but very chill and accommodating Cellar Door. Brando was our guy there. They actually asked where we were eating in Melbourne and one of the other young guys there apparently used to work at Saint Crispin. They approved of both dining destinations. Great line-up, even the ‘second’ label (Williams Crossing) were excellent.

Note: If you are allergic to cats…well… deal…

We started heading to Cobaw, but were on some really dodgy dirt roads, and after the recent rain, didn’t seem great. I ended up with some Holden sedan thing (as opposed to the SUV I wanted) so I figured I’d better not get stuck and just head into town…

More in a minute…

Day 2, go East! Yarra Valley day…

Levantine Hill
I booked a little late, so for Sunday was tough getting a lunch. Managed one at ezard at Levantine Hill. Interesting place, wasn’t really sure what to expect but had a vague idea after toting my 2015 Halliday (apparently 2016 came out just a couple days earlier, oops). Super modern, very posh designer cellar door and restaurant. Sunday was apparently Lamborghini day so after exiting from lunch the front parking area had lots of them. Thankfully having lived here and in Tokyo this stuff is pretty par for the course, so happily left quickly. Wines were pretty normal. The ones I liked the best were the two sparklings we had for lunch. I think we bought a Shiraz to take home though. I forget.

Yarra Yering
Awesome. Tasting room is very cool, old school but I loved it. Wines were top notch, several back vintages available to purchase and a handful to try. They have a broad range of what seem like pretty random varietals grown there. Back in the day they planted a bunch of stuff and still do… Highly recommend making time for a visit. I liked it so much I bought a mixed case and had it sent back here.

Coldstream Hills
This seems to be partially a Halliday one, at least reading the book. Was mentioned so thought we’d try. Cellar Door tasting was good, the guy got more engaged as we asked more questions so that was cool. Wines were pretty good, single vineyard offerings stood out (Rising, Roslyn).



Oak Ridge

Quite nice, this was a nice set up. Pretty big (20k cases/year?). I forget the lady’s name who took care of us in the tasting room but she was really cool. Knew her stuff and brought over some other guy to help us with our Mornington Peninsula Itinerary (to commence the next day). Their 864 offerings were very good, and for purchase they had a separate room to pick and choose from. Bought a couple of things from there, an older Pinot Noir and also a Meunier still… never had a red Meunier… Will crack that open at some point.

Olympic theme was on point.

To be continued in a few…

Mornington Peninsula


10 Minutes by Tractor
Quite liked this place, was very quiet as it was Monday. Restaurant on site was closed, but they had a bistro down the road (that a couple groups were sent to as they were looking for food). Good wines across the board for me, nice tasting room.

T’Gallant
Friend mentioned this one, nearby to others so stopped in. Big restaurant there (was closed) and big-ish tasting room. Seemed to be big on Pinot Grigio. Was all right, couple wines were quite good like the twice-a-decade Juno and the nicer PG. Overall not quite the same level as others.

Red Hill Estate
Was a fairly big set-up, lots of other things available to purchase other than wine. Fairly underwhelming overall for me, perhaps it was the person we had for tastings, not sure. Some wines seemed pretty good but overall vibe was kind of meh. Couple of dessert wines were fun.


Montalto
The cafe and restaurant area was really nice. I had a much needed long black while there, needed that to power through! The grounds are really nice, quite a big area you can walk around with a sculpture garden. Wines were also pretty tasty, couple of back vintages to try as well. Enjoyed the visit quite a bit.

Paringa Estate
Finished the day off at Paringa Estate. Quite a good range of wines, I enjoyed many of them. There’s a lot of construction at the cellar door, I reckon when they finish it’ll be pretty nice. I think they’ll have some glass windows looking over into the winery area when all sorted. Worth a visit for sure.

Stayed over on the Peninsula at Woodman Estate, very cool, scored a chalet on the lake. Winter travel is great!

For the next day managed to have a driver so didn’t have to worry so much about the driving bit. Thought we’d crush several wineries during the day but was actually a nice lazy start with a lunch and only went to three different places. But they were all great places with lots of good conversation at the cellar doors.


Yabby Lake
Nice cellar door and restaurant. We had our lunch here which was pretty good. Range of wines were also very good, especially the single vineyard offerings. Lady who helped us was great, very knowledgeable, quite chatty, got some neat info on other folks in the area (many are friends of each other and all kind of know everyone). Great visit.



Moorooduc Estate
Moorooduc as mentioned above did well for their Pinot Noir as seen in Decanter. Small cellar door shared space with the barrel room (so it was kinda chilly). Nice though, couple of dogs running around, very cool family feeling. Going through the range was great, enjoyed all of it. Several back vintages were available for purchase which was good as well. Highly recommend visiting… just around the corner from Yabby Lake.



Quealy
Our chauffeur had recommended Quealy to us, so we gave it a go. Hadn’t heard of it before. It’s run by Kathleen Quealy and her husband (who had started T’Gallant it appears, sold 10+ years back). Cellar Door is also under construction, at least a new one is. Current setup is right in the middle of the action with barrels and boxes and bottles all over, kinda neat. Kathleen spent time talking to us while we tasted and it was great conversation, very cool lady, certainly knows her stuff. The visit took a while (which was good), conversation ranging from winemaking, to differences in opinion with her husband on wines, to politics (US politics, of course). Lots of fun. Wines were very interesting, there were some amphorae on the side which make a couple different ones. Many Italian varietals were used. Conversation on some of the blends and ideas for blends was fascinating. And a friend of theirs who is a graphic designer does all of their labels, which are very cool and really stand out. Best of all…they’ve got a Koala bear that lives in the tree just outside and has been living there for years… Worth visiting for sure.

So that’s about it. Bit of a whirlwind trip. At some point I still should actually spend time in Melbourne… only had 2 nights and 2 meals! Will definitely get back, but likely in the winter again, love me some weather where I can wear a jacket!

Looks like you fitted a lot in there Colin.
You got to some good places too.

Coldstream Hills was started by Halliday. It is owned by Treasury wines now (Same group that owns Penfolds). I think Halliday may still live there.

T’gallant would be 20 something years years old as I can remember going there 20 years ago. It is also owned by Treasury these days. Kathleen Quealy and Kevin McCarthy started it and a few years back it was sold to Treasury. Kathleen left to start her own label while Kevin stayed on there until a couple of years ago.

Wow!! you really got around. You’ll need a holiday to get over your holiday. Good to see you enjoyed most of the wines. Shame about the restaurants being closed, didn’t think of that when advising.

There are a few you went to that I’ve not been to so will look them up when next in the area.

Nothing like chatting up the people at the winery, as you always find out the real movers and shakers of the region. Lot of mutual respect and admiration between the wineries, and after 5-6 you start hearing the sames names cropping up in conversations as ‘must visit’ wineries again and again.