Yarra Valley
We are quickly winding down our time in Melbourne and will be leaving for Tasmania tomorrow. Melbourne is such a vibrant and fun city with beautiful beaches, amazing food, and quirky neighborhoods.
On my list of things to do before leaving was visiting the Yarra Valley, the regions wine country. The drive is only an hour from Melbourne so we rented a car on Wednesday and set off to explore this area.
Our first stop was Oakridge Wines. This family-owned winery was founded in 1978 and has almost 25 acres of vines. The back wall of the cellar room is one giant window, so as you are tasting the wines, you are able to look out onto the vineyards and the Great Dividing Range. I have to say this was by far my favorite stop of the day. The gentleman, Hayden, who did our tasting was so much fun and provided us lots of information about the wines and the history of growing grapes. Hayden let us try extra wines and even did a blind tasting where we had to guess the varietal. It was the highlight of the day and was a great introduction to the area.
After stopping for lunch at Innocent Bystander, we headed to the next vineyard, Yarra Yering. This winery was not originally on our list but was a recommendation from Hayden at Oakridge. Started in 1969, it is a small vineyard producing high quality wines in small batches. We opted for the $15.00 Carrodus Range Tasting. I picked this particular tasting as the average price of the wines for purchase was $200 and only 40-50 cases of each wine was made. I figured it's not every day I get the opportunity to try such expensive wines for $15.00!!!
Our last winery of the day was TarraWarra Estate. Built on a hill, the winery not only has a tasting room, but also an art gallery and restaurant. The views were amazing and after we sampled the wines, we sat outside on some bean bag chairs to enjoy the setting for awhile.
On our way back to Melbourne, we made a quick stop at the Yarra Valley Dairy. This adorable store is located in an original 100-year-old milking shed. Next door to the store is the cheese factory. We were able to do a cheese sampling and ended up purchasing a couple of cheeses and meats to enjoy later in the evening for dinner.
As an aside, I finally had the opportunity to drive on the opposite side of the road! Alex did all the driving in England as all the cars were manuals and I am unable to drive a stick-shift (even though my grandparents did try to teach me multiple times!!). We also had a manual car when we drove along the Great Ocean Road. I have to say I did pretty well for my first time, only mistaking the windshield wipers for the turn signal (they are on opposite sides of the steering wheel here) a few times! It was a bit weird at first and I had to use extra brain power anytime I turned onto another street, but it was overall a success! I'm pretty sure we have automatic car rentals moving forward, so here's to more opportunities to give Alex a chance to be navigator and for me to work on driving on the left-hand side!
