La Dolce Vita
Trip Start
May 01, 2008
1
20
43
Trip End
Jun 24, 2009
Beechworth,
Victoria,
Australia
Saturday, November 22, 2008
On the weekend we set off to explore Rutherglen, Beechworth and The King Valley south of Wangaratta.
First stop was Fyffe Field Wines which we had remembered from 4 or 5 years ago as having a wonderful collection of (mostly) china pigs. Apparently there are over 2,000 now- all shapes and sizes. The label on some of the wines features a pig cartoon. There was a good range of wines including "Torny Snort" with a flying pig on the label, a fortified wine which I couldn't quite face early in the morning.
Next stop the lovely town of Yarrawonga on the border of NSW & Victoria and Lake Mulwala, which was dammed from the Murray River in the 1930's. The name "Yarrawonga" is thought to be derived from an Aboriginal word meaning place where the Wonga pigeon rested, or water running over rock
Ciccone Winery King Valley
. "Mulwala" means big lagoon or big back water.The whole area is a golfer's paradise and you can play 45 holes of golf at the largest public access golf course in Australia here, go waterskiing or fishing, so it is popular with all sorts of tourists.
On to Rutherglen, another wine area. Looks like this weekend is turning into a wine tour! We sampled wines from Lake Moodemere Winery on the banks of the Lake, and when we arrived a group of cyclists was already enjoying the scenery and no doubt the produce. They were from Perth, and come here every year on a cycle tour. H was very envious. We tasted a few and bought the Late Harvest Biancone 'a beautifully refreshing yet decadent wine' The owner told us that these vines were sent by mistake and there are only 4 rows of them, so there is not a huge amount of the wine available. It is a lovely wine if chilled on a warm summer's day.
H wanted to drop in on Stanton & Killeen Wines, mainly because of the Irish name, and we also enjoyed the wines we tasted here, H trying the whites, and I the reds. We bought .......
The Rutherglen Wine Experience was our next stop. This is more of an information bureau and café than a wine tasting place, but we bought some lovely cards with Australian native birds on them. I'll have to decide whether to frame them or send them off as Christmas cards. They claim Rutherglen is blessed with the world's richest wines. We liked them too, for me, especially the Shiraz!!!
On to the beautiful town of Beechworth where we struck it lucky like so many of the gold miners back in the 1860's We arrived just before the Info Bureau closed and they told us there had been a cancellation at the Rose Cottage B&B so we hot-footed it around there, and were thrilled to see the beautiful cottage Garden and were shown into a room beautifully furnished with a huge brass bed, and numerous pieces of antique furniture and gold framed pictures on the wall. The cornices and centre light piece on the ceiling were plastered with a rose theme and lovingly painted in the pink and green theme of the room. The bathroom was modern but with the antique look and there was a small outdoor alcove with a table and chairs where we sat and watched the birds flitting about in the rose bushes. Breakfast was sumptuous and served with great care from our charming hosts Tony and Lyn. Tony told us a few stories of when he grew up in Rose Bay in Sydney and how the Japanese submarines were seen in Sydney Harbour. The garden was a treasure, a cottage delight sporting roses of all types, stately standards and unruly trailers creeping up over the archways, daisies, delphiniums, camellias, hibiscus, fuchsias and many more too numerous to mention. We would really recommend a stay here. Book direct if you can as the tourist bureau adds an extra 15%. At the moment it is $110 per room per night.
The tourist bureau had recommended a visit to La Trobe University campus which is set in 11 acres of heritage listed gardens, of the former Mayday Hills hospital, which was a Lunatic Asylum. I'll bet the students have lots of jokes about that! It is dedicated to conferences, seminars, etc. even weddings and you can stay there year round. Some enterprising soul takes ghost tours there to show what life was like living and working in the institution during the 1860's. There are remains of a magnificent stone wall and a ha-ha (a ditch with one sloping side and one vertical side into which is built a retaining wall) normally used for livestock but in this instant presumably to keep the patients in and the public out. I wonder how many students have scaled it!
The trees here are magnificent, and most of them are labelled. There are large mature London planes, cedars, English elms and oaks as well as various eucalypts, Liquid Ambers, cypress and even enormous Sequoias and pines.
(see http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/ahdb/search.pl?mode=place_detail;place_id=100539
Unbeknown to us we had chosen the weekend well as this was "La Dolce Vita" the weekend chosen to celebrate the Italian food and wines of the area. The idea is you buy a wine glass for $10 and then get tastings from any or all of the many wineries in the King Valley south of Wangaratta. I had been told that the Milawa Cheese Factory was excellent so headed straight there. After Ashgrove Cheese near Devonport and Lactos in Burnie, we found this a bit tame, although if you are a lover of goats cheese it would be good and they also have chocolate and wine tasting rooms, so it well worth a visit.
Since we were already at Milawa we had to go to Brown Bros where we were in time to join a tour of the extensive winery. The Browns go against the Italian majority here as the founders were from Scotland and had originally emigrated to Canada before deciding that the weather here was kinder. The winery has state of the art stainless steel bins and is spotlessly clean. Our tour guide was a fount of knowledge and explained the various facets of the wine making process, and all the while we were serenaded by a very good Jazz Band entertaining the many customers of the food stalls set up in the grounds. By the end of the tour H was starving as usual but we decided to wait for some Italian food and headed south to Ciccone Winery. This is in a glorious setting, deep in the valley just across the mountain from Brady's lookout where the notorious bushranger used to hang out. Many of the families here are from Calabria. I told Pat Ciccone that my sister-in-law was a "Calabrese". Strangely, he asked if she was from Griffith! She isn't but I am!!! The food we had here was similar to Nona Calabrese's cooking and washed down with the excellent Ciccone wines. Along with the other revellers we were serenaded by two ladies on mandolin and guitar. Wonderful!!!
Next a quick stop at Pizzini Wines where we were amused when the young chap helping out in the tasting centre described one of the wines as having a "Tink Pinge" We all had a good laugh and he admitted to having tested some of the produce. They also had a band here with lots of kids dancing to the music while their parents sat around at tables on the grass sampling the wines. Very good atmosphere here. We passed by Sam Mirandas, Chrismont, Politini and Dal Zotto which all appeared to be swinging, on the way to Boggy Creek. We wish we had come here earlier as they had been serving Paella, and the setting was magnificent, even prettier than at Ciccone. H had a good chat with our host who was a keen (crazy) cyclist like him. They even looked alike!!! ie. tall and skinny! Lovely part of the world this!
