Margarette River and its wines.

I have been learning some Cantonese as we have been traveling. I can order coffee, wine and beer now and I am sure that will help me win over my new parents in law well at least my father in law! In particular I have been concentrating on learning the words coffee and red wine as they are without a doubt some of my favorite things.

It is thanks to Mr Lee and my lovely husband that I have a taste for red wine at all. They have urged me to indulge in some of the best red wine that this country has to offer and it is with Mark and many of his friends that we have visited some of the best wine regions in Australia.

This blog post is written in the Margarette River while I sit in a cool little cafe called 'Blue Ginger' attempting to get over a wine and food glut of mass proportions. The Margarete River in WA is a very large wine Region that rivals the Hunter Valley. The vines and vinyards are old and this is reflected in the high quality of all of the wines that we have taisted.

The region is a little overcomercialisedbut that is to be expected. Despite this fact many if not most of the cellar doors are easy going and unpretentious. Many wineries have restaurants attached but they are mostly fine dining which is a bit much.

The town of Margarete River is busy and overflowing with people and I think this reflects WA and the mining boom it is experiencing.

BEST BITS:
Pierro Cellar Door - great service, great wine.
Fermoy Cellar Door - was a wine chosen for the Danish Royal Wedding and gave great value for money
Cullen Cellar Door - Great Cab Sav!
Leeuwin Cellar Door - Good service and great wine
Silk Road - where they make silk products from scratch as in they produce the silk from silk worms on their mulberry trees...very cool and well priced producs.
The Nut and Cerial Co. - Great honeyed macadamias
Learning more about the making of the wines from chatty sales people at the cellar doors.

NOT SO GREAT:
Vasse Felix - too expensive and overcomercialised. Very pretentious.
Coffee is not of the standard of Melbourne which is a shame.
You cant do every winery so you must just choose a few!
The chocolate shops have nothing on the one in the Mornington Peninsular.

Overall the region makes great Chardonnay and great Cab Sav. This will be our last food and wine indulgence for a while as I am getting fat! It has been amazing and we are now looking forward to Perth.

Hope you are enjoying the start of term 2 for all the teachers out there!
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