When my sister Meredith and I first landed in southern Australia in the late autumn, the last thing we were expecting was that we had just arrived in wine country. It was hardly Champagne, France or Tuscany, Italy, after all. The only Australian wine I was familiar with was Yellow Tail (which you can totally tell is from Australia because it has a kangaroo on the bottle, and nothing screams Australia more than a kangaroo), and that was something I could pick up at the nearest Total Wine for about $5 if my budget was tight.
My expectations were low, to say the least. But Meredith and I are not ones to say no to a good wine tasting. After a few days of seeing ads posted to the hostel bulletin board and reading about Australia’s vineyard scene online, we decided to put aside a day to head out into the country and throw back some glasses of pinot grigio with reckless abandon. We were on vacation, dammit, and we were not going to pass up the chance to get drunk under the guise of sophistication (we’d even throw in a few, “Look at the legs on that one!” as we swirl the wine around in the glass and deeply inhale, and hoped that our fellow tasters would be extremely impressed by our enlightened know-how).
We pored over articles on our phone screens to research the best Australian wine region to visit for a day. Yarra Valley, which is only an hour outside of Melbourne, is host to a popular wine industry, its cooler climate perfect for growing chardonnay, pinot noir, and sparkling wines. We were down with that. And there would be opportunities for chocolate and cheese tasting, two foods that pair perfectly with a good wine (trust us, we are wine connoisseurs, remember?).
Yarra Valley Wine Tasting Tours
Our first order of business was finding the right tour company to whisk us away from Melbourne and into wine tasting bliss. The first company we ran across was Yarra Valley Wine Tasting Tours, which could not be more aptly named and which was well-reviewed while still being affordable.
There are several different tours that the company offers, and we decided to go with the Friday afternoon tour that picked you up in Melbourne, took you to a wine and cheese tasting, followed by a chocolate tasting, followed by a wine cellar tour with a complimentary glass of sparkling wine and free time to wander through the rolling vineyards.
The exact tour that we chose is no longer offered, as the company is constantly making changes to its itineraries using the feedback of its customers (for example, after our tasting I received an email asking if we thought they should skip the chocolate tasting and instead go to another winery in future tours; the answer was a resounding no). Currently, here is the tour most similar to the one we took. It is offered only on Friday and Saturday afternoons, picks you up from Melbourne’s CBD, and takes you to three premium Yarra Valley wineries and the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie.
Friday & Saturday Afternoon Wine Tours
AUD $105 per person
info@yarravalleywinetastingtours.com.au
Book here!
The Tour
The day before we were set to go tasting through Victoria’s beautiful wine region, we received an email from Yarra Valley Wine Tasting Tours asking if we’d like to meet 45 minutes earlier in order to stop at Yarra Glen, a small town of less than 3,000 people 40 kilometers from the city, “for everyone to get a light lunch to suit their needs.” Despite the fact that our hostel served unlimited free pancakes every morning, which we shoveled down our gullets like they were going out of style, we were still pleased at the idea of stopping at a small town bakery for a toasty before loading up on as much wine, cheese, and chocolate as possible.
Meredith and I were greeted outside St. Paul’s Cathedral by our tour guide, an enthusiastic Australian bloke, who had lived in Melbourne all his life. He made conversation with each and every person on the bus on our way to Yarra Glen, and seemed to have a smile plastered permanently upon his face.
Our first winery was called De Bortoli Wines, just outside of Yarra Glen. De Bortoli should be pronounced De-Bor-TOE-lee, as any person even somewhat familiar with the Italian language could tell you, but the tour guide repeatedly pronounced it as De-BOR-toe-lee, to our confusion and discomfort. The winery was originally founded in 1928 by Vittorio and Giuseppina De Bortoli, which are possibly the most Italian names in the entire world, expanded under their son Deen De Bortoli, and it is now in the hands of the third generation, Darren De Bortoli. In 2009 De Bortoli Wines was asked to join Australia’s First Families of Wine, 12 of the most celebrated family names in Australian wine, and the winery is known for its award-winning Botrytis Semillon. Obviously, they are a very well respected winery, and it was exciting to see the best of the best. Plus, De Bortoli has a cheesemaker and cheese shop on-site, which was incorporated into our wine tasting.
We got to taste six different wines, ranging from cabernet sauvignon to sweet dessert wines, each one having a cheese expertly paired to it to offset the components of the wine, ranging from tangy and soft to sharp and hard. Meredith and I, who actually know nothing about wine despite this not being our first rodeo, were shocked at how perfectly each cheese complemented each wine. We once had a wine and cheese night with a $8 bottle of chardonnay and whatever cheese was leftover in our mother’s fridge (including string cheese, American cheese, and cream cheese). De Bortoli did it so much better, as they clearly actually know what they are doing.
After a slightly tipsy, obligatory photo shoot which almost caused us to get left behind by the bus, we headed off to our next destination: Yarra Valley Chocolaterie & Ice Creamery.
Our tour guide excitedly pointed out the ice creamery as we walked inside, encouraging us to purchase a massive, artisan ice cream treat after the tasting, a devilish grin spreading from ear to ear. The treats he was referring to looked to contain approximately 5,000 calories, so we turned our attention to the more manageable chocolate pieces in the tasting room.
The Yarra Valley Chocolaterie was founded by a husband and wife team in 2012, and today offer over 250 different chocolate products, including truffles, bars, nougat, and chocolate spread, made with fruits and nuts grown in their very own orchard. The tasting coordinator gave us an overview of the types of products the chocolaterie offers and the process of creating them. Some of our favorites included lemon, lime, and mint dark chocolate, mango and passionfruit milk chocolate, and strawberries and vanilla bean milk chocolate. There were some other incredibly unique varieties, like violet and forest berries white chocolate, sesame and poppy seed caramel crunch, and crunchy chocolate malt and honeycomb.
I’m telling you, some of that chocolate literally had our eyes rolling into the back of our heads in utmost pleasure. Sometimes chocolate consumption is a nearly sexual experience, and I’m not ashamed to say that some of this was the most orgasmic chocolate I’ve tasted in my life.
After perusing the walls of chocolate in the showroom, and balking a little at the price tags (one of the gourmet bars that we had tasted cost AUD $12, and a package of four bars cost AUD $45; but don’t get me wrong, this chocolate was truly worth that much), we made a mental note to purchase Australian chocolate for our mother at some point before leaving the country (which we did, at Salamanca Market in Hobart), and hopped aboard the bus to make our way to our final stop of the tour.
Chandon is a winery that specializes in sparkling wines, its brut wine awarded Best Australian Sparkling Wine at the 2018 Champagne & Sparkling Wine World Championships in London. Again, WHO KNEW that Australia was so damn good at wine, or that they were being recognized so frequently on a global scale?
The first thing we did was go into the cellar, where we learned the history of Chandon and the expertise that goes into creating every bottle of sparkling. Once upstairs, we entered the tasting room, which was absolutely breathtaking, its floor to ceiling windows revealing views of the beautiful and expansive wine country, extending all the way to the mountain ranges in the distance. We were offered a full glass of sparkling wine, selecting from four of their finest options. I chose the Cygnet Pinot Meunier Rosé, a bounty of strawberry, redcurrant, and pink grapefruit aromas, a “wine full of character and personality.” Meredith and I enjoyed our bubblies out back on the terrace, sipping the sweet wine in the crisp, late autumn air and taking full advantage of the prime photographic opportunities.
It was an incredible afternoon full of novel and complex flavors, and we headed back to Melbourne sleepy and satisfied.
I am aware now that our tour only took us to the best of the best in Yarra Valley, wanting to expose us to the most pretentious and well-crafted products that the Valley has to offer and most likely hoping that we’d be unable to resist taking home a pricey bottle or two (believe me, I was tempted). Sometimes it’s nice to forget the fact that you don’t even own a hairbrush and play the part of classy oenophile for a day.
My best friend’s Australian ex-boyfriend gave me the impression that Aussies were grubby, beer pounding, coke snorting psychos (sorry to offend anyone out there; that really was not fair of me, but in my defense, he was gross). It turns out that Australians can actually be quite sophisticated, too. Yarra Valley is one of Australia’s most renowned wine regions, and no trip to Melbourne would be complete without a fancy schmancy tasting at some of the region’s premium locations. The mountains and endless green is reason enough to go in and of itself; the tasty wine, rich chocolate, and pleasant afternoon buzz is just a bonus.
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