Day 4 – Wine tasting

 

Joy is a glass of wine and cheese to accompany

What else does one do when in Margaret River? There is plenty but by a big margin tasting wine is one of the premiere activities.  There are lots of wineries in the region with some of the best quality wines that Australia can produce.  I wanted to try wines that were not big name wines and I settled on a couple for the first day (several more were intended).  The first was Woodlands and along with Cullen and other luminaries they were one of the first to set up vineyards.

 

Woodlands Winery

They are in an area called Wilyabrup just along the road from Cullen and other named wineries.  The entrance was modest as was the tasting area.  We were welcomed and sat down with a couple of glasses, shown a menu of wines and then we proceeded to taste almost everything from the cheapest to the most expensive.  Some of the wines were great. 

 

Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon are the premier grapes of the region and we tried various iterations of them. We also tried their Sauvignon Blanc/Semillion which was ok but had a very noticeable minerality that I observed with many of the white wines in particular that seem to be part of the terroir.  We had a tasty cheese board alongside the wine.  It was a most enjoyable hour and a half taking our time enjoying the various wine tastes.  I was however spitting the wine into a spittoon being the nominated driver.  Bev however was able to take full advantage of the experience.

 

The next winery was Pierro which I had heard of for some reason.  He is a man who is passionate about white wines, in particular chardonnay.  Again we had the whole range to try.  It was an interesting range and seemed to reflect the quirky nature of the wine maker.  We tried his top Chardonnay and it was a beauty!  One of the best I have tried and we were told that the particular vintage, 2018, was one of the best in the region for some time.  I think by the time we had done so much tasting my palate was done for the meantime.  Remarkably there was no cost for the tastings. 

 

Pierro cellar door

Afterwards we returned to Margaret River so Bev could attend her Apartment block virtual AGM.  Meanwhile I wandered into town for a coffee and to read my book as well as get some vegetables and meat for our dinner. Afterwards I found a track that took me to Margaret River.  It looks reasonable size there but actually it is not much more than a stream. 

Margaret River

That night we were both so tired that I kept nodding off while reading and Bev had gone to sleep by about 8:30pm.  I guess jetlag and our busy time so far had caught up with us.