Wine Tasting Australian Style

Sunday 3 December

Another early morning – especially for a Sunday – out before breakfast was even served (08.00 – 10.30 Saturdays and Sundays) – they obviously expect everyone to be up late, so Colin had to make do with a muesli bar and a cup of tea in the room. Our coach arrived early again, so it was just as well we were ready by 07.30. The sun was shining at this point, but by the time we reached the city centre after all the pick ups, an hour later, there were some ominous dark clouds arriving overhead.

Today’s tour was a ride on the Puffing Billy, an old steam locomotive, and a visit to three wineries in the Yarra Valley (I had drunk Pinot Noir from the Yarra Valley whilst in Cairns, which was one of the best wines I have had in Australia, so I hoped to find some more interesting bottles on this trip). The coach held 61 and was absolutely full – we found out later that half were going to a wild life park instead of the wineries! – eh?!

The coach made its way out of the city and was soon motoring along the eastern freeway towards the outer suburbs of Melbourne. Towns had grown up on either side of the motorway, one side always being more exclusive than the other – sometimes the same properties differed in price in excess of 30,00 GBP depending on which side of the road they were built. The first stop was at a small picnic area in the forest just outside Belgrave. The driver made tea in a billycan by swinging the hot water and tea leaves around his head to mix and brew. Accompanying this drink was an opportunity to taste “vegemite” – similar to marmite, but I think not as flavoursome, although all Australians would disagree. While here within the forest, we were provided with bird seed and flocks of sulphur crested cockatoos, galagas, and king parrots immediately flew down from the trees, landing on peoples arms, shoulders and heads, looking for food. Unfortunately, during the journey the weather had become darker, and as we arrived it began to drizzle, and had turned quite cool. By the time the tea was made and biscuits out, the rain was falling much harder, so many of us made our way back into the coach to watch the antics of the bird from a dry sanctuary. This is the first time it has rained while we have been outside since we arrived in Australia, and probably since we started our trek in Northern Thailand. We do still have our ponchos, but as it was sunny first thing, we didn’t think to put them in the bag.

As the driver was clearing away the debris of our mid morning snack, the rain stopped and the sun was trying to find a way through the clouds. Our next stop was at Belgrave Station, the beginning of the line for the Puffing Billy train. This is an old steam engine and carriages, dating back to the days of the 1880’s and the nearby gold rush. The track was laid from the gold fields to the city to bring the much needed supplies to the prospectors. Today the train and carriages have been lovingly restored by volunteer enthusiasts, as well as clearing the track from Belgrave to Lansdowne. We were only going one stop – about 20 minutes ride - to Menzies Creek. The station, an old fashioned wooden booking hall and ticket office and on the platform officious looking railway staff – engine driver, guards carrying red and green flags, station master, signalmen – paced up and down, trying to get settled as quickly as possible. The seats in the carriages ran end to end, instead of crossways, and there was no glass in the windows, just two bars across the opening. Our coach driver came and showed us how to sit on the edge of the carriage with out feet through the bars, hanging over the sides – this was great fun, and we clung on as the train chuffed and chugged through a twisty-turny route through the forest, over tall wooden bridges where people gathered to wave to the train and past level crossings where loud bells rang and red lights flashed to inform local traffic of the approach of the train – it was like being a child again on a real Thomas the Tank Engine train. By the time we got off the train the sun was shining again, and the engine sparkled green as plumes of smoke rose in the air and the hooter tooted, to hurry everyone along, so it could continue its journey

Back to the coach, which was waiting for us in the station car park, and on to the first of our wineries. The journey took us across the Yarra Valley – a wide sweeping, flat bottomed vale, bounded by hills on all sides – the …… and the Great Divide. There were fields of wheat, of cattle grazing and of course swathes of vines planted in long neat rows, looking very green and healthy. There are roses planted at the end of each row of vines in all the wineries, for two reasons – first to show the colour of the wine to be produced from those grapes (red, white and pink) and secondly, more historically, if any diseases attack the plants, the roses will react more quickly and die, giving a little time for the viniculturist to sort out the problem, be it aphids or other parasites, or extreme weather changes, The scenery was stunningly beautiful and peaceful. We passed through small villages and towns, such as …….. and Lily Dale, ….

The first winery was Fergusons, a large plantation, currently building wooden cabins to take visitors overnight or longer. Lunch had been arranged here, and we were shown to old oak tables in the restaurant. We were seated with three Korean gentlemen and a couple – she from Spain and he from India. All were very chatty – particularly one of the young men who told us he was in Melbourne for a few days to attend a conference and that he had been married for just six months. He wanted to know whether Colin recommended marriage (of course he does – he’s married to me!!) and he confided to me later that he and his wife have a few harsh words if he has a drink with his friends – oh dear. His friend was currently at Melbourne Uni studying English – if he did well it would only be for six months, if not likely to be a year. The ‘third man’ – not Harry Lime – was a tour guide for visitors from his country, and he was genning up on a tour he may have to guide. The couple came from Harrow, and he traveled extensively for Adeeco, the technical staff agency, but the lady had little to say – not sure if she was girlfriend, wife, or what she did. Lunch turned out to be roast beef – cut from huge joints that had been cooked over a roaring fire, and all the trimmings, including Yorkshire puddings. My beef was pink and delicious, but they catered for those wanting it well done too. It was accompanied by carafes of red and white wines, which were quickly refilled as they emptied – I think the wine was plonky, not some of their best – but it went down well with the food. The young married man and Colin drank at least a carafe of white between them, with lots of toasts – I feel a virus coming on!

Our next winery was Rochfords – I think I have seen some of their wine in the shops back home. A lady went through the correct processes for tasting a wine, and then let us loose on five of their range – three white and two reds. The first - a semillion blanc - left you with an extremely strong taste of tinned pineapple, but was probably the best of the bunch. There were two chardonnays, neither of which we like very much – no depth of flavour and just not us (to be fair we are not chardonnay drinkers). I was disappointed with the reds – they gave us a pinot noir – I though hooray, good Yarra Valley wine – but what a disappointment – even thinner than the Valpolicellas I complain about at home, and nothing like the flavoursome wine I had drunk in Cairns – and a cabernet sauvignon – also very thin and unexciting. Many of us ended up tipping our samples into the small plastic buckets provided so I don’t think anyone bought any wines here - which was a shame, as the visitor centre and staff seemed to be very professional and have a good restaurant, an interesting art gallery on a mezzanine floor and a look out tower to view the estate. Perhaps again, the wines we were tasting were not their best – where was the shiraz? (a Persian word for full bodied red wine, dating back to the time of the crusades, when it was exported from what is now Iran to Europe).

All too soon we were back in the coach, racing to reach our third winery before the tour started – promptly at 15.00. We only just made it. This winery was the Moet Chandon winery of Australia, producing, of course, sparkling wine – Mmmmmmm, very much me. An interesting young guide took us through the processes to produce their wine, from the squeezing of the grapes (the first press producing the best wines, through to the third press which went to produce table wines), to the fermentation stage, to placing in oak or aluminuim barrels toage, to the tasting room, where there are four expert mixers who combine the different grapes to get the best wine, to where the sugar is added (between 5 and 55 grams, depending on how sweet the wine is to be) and the bottles capped, to produce carbon dioxide and the bubbles. He showed us how the lees are removed -after the bottles have been slowly moved from horizontal to upright over a period of about two weeks, the necks are instantly frozen, the cap taken off and the lees explode from the bottle, before being recapped to keep the bubbles in. We visited the “riddling room” where thousands of bottles are laid in racks, with a chalk mark on the base, and turned every day – one quarter on way and an eighth back, while the wine matures. There were further racks of thousands of bottles of wine around the walls which were some of their best wines, maturing for five years or more – it takes a minimum of three years to produce a bottle of sparkling wine and maybe as much as eight to ten years for the best. The riddling room is kept at a constant temperature of 16 degrees C and we had to pass through a chamber (it felt like being in a crowded lift) before we could escape into the room set up for us to taste two of their splarklers – a white dry and a pink sweet. The white suited me best, a dry fizz that had lots of bubbles – the pink was a bit tasteless and flat (I thought Sainsburys rose champers tasted much better than this). We were supplied with cheese, bread and relishes to accompany our drinks which kept us sober. The set up here was very professional and millions of Australian dollars have been invested into the visitor centre, as well as the winery itself (it was originally a cattle ranch on the banks of the Yarra, where Mr Chandon recognized the land was fertile and the weather just right for growing grapes. There are five Moet (pronounced correctly sounding the ‘t’ at the end as Mr Moet was a Dutchman) and Chandon wineries outside France – Argentina, Brazil, California, Spain, as well as this one in Victoria. The tables wines made here are marketed in England under the “Green Point” label. We also tasted their rosé sparkling wine, but this was very sweet. They do make a drier sparkling rosé but this was not available for tasting – we found out where to buy it in London.

The time here passed very quickly and we were soon on our way back to Melbourne, passing through small towns and villages which have grown up to service the many wineries in the area, amongst them Eltham and Footscray. We approached the city from the east side, and the driver offered to drop us off right outside our hotel, which was very useful. Once back in our room, I blogged while Colin snoozed. I wasn’t feeling at all hungry, so Colin had a ‘snickers with a cup of tea’ for his dinner!

I can’t believe that today is our last full day in Australia - the six weeks have flown past. We have really enjoyed it here and will be sad to get on the plane tomorrow – although everyone tells us that New Zealand is even more spectacular. It is strange talking to Australians about the places we have seen – Australians do not seem to venture far from their immediate environment – and they are surprised that we have seen so much of their continent. Most people in the south here have not been Darwin or Alice Springs and many have not seen Adelaide or even Sydney – but I suppose the long distances involved, mean that to go to these far flung spots you need more than a day or two. I think Australia is now definitely my number one place to return to so far.