Off to the Yarra Valley

[Freuds_Cat]

I am off to the beautiful Victorian wine region of the Yarra Valley for the weekend. Unfortunately I have to drive over by myself so I have stocked up the music list in the car for the 10 hour drive including the DP Gibson Bass CD, all of Robs stuff and a few songs from ChrisP, Uwe and Kenny. Plus the usual reliable suspects like Govt Mule, UFO, Montrose, Budgie etc.

See you all in a few days

Bret

[TBird1958]

Happy Travelling!


I enjoyed Big Country quite a bit during my recent trip.

[Highlander]

Bummer... alcohol, alcohol, everywhere, and not a drop to drink...

At least until you get home...


Safe travels, Sport...!

Whenever I do a long (family) trip I get little opportunity to listen to what I like to I mostly listen to classical music...

Today was not a family trip so Warren Zevon featured rather heavily in the itinerary

[Barklessdog]

Be sure to post a lot of pictures, hope you have a great time.

[Freuds_Cat]

Well that was well worth it  

11 hour drive on the Friday. Over to Healsville. Great little town north of Melbourne between the high country and the Yarra valley. The council here have constantly refused to allow McDonalds, KFC et al to setup shop here so there is a very thriving array of cafe's, bakeries and restuarants along the main st.



Up early and and had breakfast in the Wattle seed cafe then I took a drive up through the forest towards Narbethong. Beautiful country. This is one of the areas affected by the bushfires that I posted about last year as you can see by the blackness on the tree trunks.







I wish I was able to take some pics of the scenery as I got higher up the mountain but the road was a bit slippery and had no edge to speak of. The trees were bigger and taller with more (and bigger) Tree Ferns beneathe them. It was quite magestic.



more soon.

[Freuds_Cat]

After my drive through the forest I headed back down to Healsville and over to Yarra Glen stopping on my way at a huge impressive looking winery that I wont name. Mainly because although it looked the biz, I wasn't particularly impressed with either the wines or the attitude of the staff. Not to mention the the fact that it is the only winery that I've been to in Australia where they charge a $4 fee to promote their wines to you. I know that in France and a few other places this is accepted but what people need to know is that any wine tasted over the counter of a winery here is marked down as part of their marketing budget. Marketing up to a certain (decent) percentage is a tax deduction. In a fit of arrogance I chose to walk away without paying my $4 fee, happily waiting for them to embarrass themselves by running around the counter and chasing me out the door for the sake of a few bucks in front of about 15 other customers who were thinking pretty much what I was. I was all prepared to tell them that I was sorry but the small amount of wine that I tasted wasn't of good enough quality to warrant me paying their fee. Of course they were used to people like me and I was simply ignored as I walked outside and  back to my car.

[Freuds_Cat]

A small distance further down the road and I was in Yarra Glen. Small town with a big grand old hotel.
I headed on up the valley and stopped at the Yarrawood vinyard.

A little background for those interested in my wine ramblings. If wine doesn't interest you skip to the next post   :
The Yarra valley made its biggest impact on the Australian wine scene (in my experience) due to two main things. 1.The fact that the pre-eminent (and IMHO the most influential)  wine writer in the country James Haliday has his vinyard (Coldstream Hills) here.
And 2. Coldstream Hills and many other vinyards here grow and put a lot of effort into making very high quality Pinot Noir.

A few years ago at the national wine show (called Tasting Australia) in Sydney I worked my way through quite a lot of Yarra Valley Pinots (and a few Tasmanian ones as well). My home in the Adelaide hills is also a Pinot growing area and I know two of the main Pinot focused winemakers in Tim Knappstein and Stephen George. I have barrel tasted almost all of the barrels from one of Tims vintages with him, learning about the different parcels and clones and reasons for planting a particular clone on particular teroir as opposed to another. I've also spent a week (definitely not long enough) in the main Pinot growing region of France Burgundy.

Some of the Pinots I tasted in Sydney that year were I admit not sitting up top but pulled out from under the counter after short but detailed conversations (usually with the winemakers themselves). These guys are usually very down to earth and genuinely proud of their wine and when they find someone that they feel is passionate about Pinot (one of, if not THE most difficult of grapes to get right) They often want to impress. And I was impressed.
Yarra Burn, Yarra Yering, Coldstream hills and sadly a few others that I cant remember now without refering to my filed notes were amongst the best Pinots I had ever tasted. Tim Knappsteins 2008 Pinot IMHO is probably the best Australian Pinot of recent vintages that I think I've tasted. Mind you I haven't been down to Ashton Hills (Stephen George's vinyard) in a while. Yet again I digress......

AAAAAnyway....     To be honest I was a little disapointed with the quality of the many Pinots I tasted last Saturday in the Yarra Valley. There were a few "good" ones but and even a great one, but no excellent ones to be found. In fact I found them a little flabby and plumby. This was reflected by the fact that not one of the bottles that returned to South Australian with me were Pinot. I am no expert, just an enthusiastic layman but in my opinion I think whats happening is that the drought which has lasted for 10 years here in Australia and finally broken this year has probably seen a warming in the Yarra Valley, a bad thing for Pinot Noir which is fundamentally a cool climate variety. Noticeably by contrast some of the better wines tasted were the Cabernets which require a warmer climate.

Even though Yarrawood was my first point of purchase for the day it already reflected my ramblings above. I bought a very nice Cabernet.

[Highlander]

Damn...! you've completely ruined the stereotyping for your nation...

[TBird1958]

  Nice pics and beautiful country!

I had such a great time driving my Subaru on roads like the ones in your pics Brett!

My liver prefers liquor     But every now and then it askes for wine.

[Freuds_Cat]

Mark I love roads like this too. Up a bit higher the road was skinnier and steeper with tighter bends and no shoulder. With a few interesting hairpins and steep drops with (curiously) no guard rail. It was quite slimey and there was nowhere to stop. I am really kicking myself for not having my camera ready and sitting in my lap.

This is not my pic but it was taken on the same part of the road that I was describing.



Ken, speaking of upsetting country stereotypes, from where these pics were taken to the nearest Ski fields is only a 2 hour drive.

[Highlander]

Brilliant...!

Forgot to ask... do you have anyone you know in the Melbourne area...? if the answer is yes I'll PM

I'm always in awe of the land in the central Highlands of Scotland... think I'll start a spin-off thread...

[Freuds_Cat]

Yes


I drove a motorcycle through that part of Scotland in the early 90's and yes it is beautiful country.

[Barklessdog]

Nice pictures. Love the Outback in the "Outback".

[Freuds_Cat]

John, this would be the true Outback in the outback pic.

Nullabor plain on the Great Australian bight. To be honest its about the same distance from home as the Yarra Valley but in the opposite direction.

[Barklessdog]

Yeah I realized that you were not in the official "Outback", the place, but could not resist you being in the official Outback "the car"!