Food Tours · Tour

Sixteen Wines, Three Very Different Cellar Doors

Half a day, and sixteen or more different wines, which is a lot for five hours and is the reason to book this over a full-day tour that spends most of itself driving. Three cellar doors, chosen to be as unlike each other as possible. Helen & Joey Estate sits on the hills at Gruyere with the whole valley in front of it, and makes bold cool-climate wines. It also has a large unicorn statue, which you will photograph whether you meant to or not. Payten & Jones in Healesville is the boutique one, and the interesting one: small-batch, natural, minimal-intervention winemaking, which is a different argument about what wine should be. There is an optional upgrade to cross to Four Pillars Gin, at your own expense. Soumah closes it, with European varietals and a Nebbiolo, which is not what you expect from Australia. The drive out goes along the Melba and Maroondah highways past Coldstream, the TarraWarra Museum of Art and Healesville Sanctuary, with the Dandenong Ranges and the Yarra Ranges National Park on either side. Fifteen people at most, in English, French, German, Italian or Spanish, on a midi-coach with WiFi, and a barista coffee at the departure point. Meals are not included, though grazing boards can be bought. You can also board at Lilydale if you are already in the Valley. It finishes at Federation Square, which puts you on the train lines.