Western Australia: Perth to Margaret River

Fighting jet lag after only being in Sydney 36 hours, flying another 5 hours and 2000 miles to Perth in Western Australia didn't actually seem that crazy. And it wasn't. I slept the entire flight, we arrived late to our hostel and then I slept again until what became my usual wake up time for the next few days of 6:30am. Lorenzo had already been visiting relatives in Perth for the past few days, so he met up with Brett, Michelle and I at the hostel on Sunday morning and we hit the road in our brightly-colored rental car that we affectionately nicknamed the Green Goblin.

Our first day of driving was to get to Margaret River, with picturesque stops along the way. The weather was a bit cool and cloudy, so not the brilliantly sun-shining and hot weather we had somewhat expected (and packed for), but we nevertheless enjoyed the sights of beaches, cliffs and small towns as we wound our way down to Margaret River for a few nights in the wine region.

The general pattern of the trip was wine taste for a day, hike/walk/drive for a day, repeat. As this was our driving day, by the time we got to Margaret River and dropped our bags in the hostel, it was time to search out dinner. We chose a place called Settlers, and inadvertently shut the bar down after dinner and a few rounds of white wine and Little Creatures microbrewery beer. It was only 10pm! Just as well, as we had a day of wine tasting ahead of us. Little did we know that this would be our last night eating out on the road and that we had MasterChef-style culinary adventures ahead of us throughout the trip (more in future posts).

The Margaret River wine region has over 100 vineyards, and nearly all of them are open for free tastings to the public. Even though we were tasting on a Monday, we had no problems with wineries that were closed that day or because it was the off season. All of the wineries we visited also had very modern and spacious tasting rooms as well, which I suppose is a benefit of it being a young wine region (not a lot of legacy to deal with) and a popular tourist destination.

Here is a quick recap of the wineries we visited:

• Knotting Hill Estate - Boutique winery situated on a lovely man-made lake. The pourer didn't know all that much about wine, but we purchased a few exceptional values of red blends, fed the fish in the lake, and were on our way.

 Knotting Hill Tasting Room

• Vasse Felix - The oldest winery in the region, we were worried that it would be resting on its laurels, but in fact, it was our favorite winery of the day and we purchased our only "pricey" bottle of the trip here to save for Thanksgiving - a Cab, Malbec and Petit Verdot blend called the Heytesbury. We also enjoyed a fine dining lunch here, more because it was our best option given convenience and location, not because we planned on being so fancy mid-way through the day.

 The group at Vasse Felix

• Pierro -We stopped in here on recommendation from our surfer/mechanical engineer/wine pourer we liked at Vasse Felix and although we weren't wowed enough to buy anything at the time, we did regret not buying their well-priced $25 Shiraz that had a nice peppery characteristic to it.
• Voyager Estate - This was our first winery that really had a Nap/Sonoma tourist feel, with lots of stuff you could buy other than the wine (fruit preserves, glasses, etc). and more of the 'rock up to the bar and find a spot for tasting' type feel. The wines here were fairly good though, and we did buy a bottle of white to enjoy with one of our dinners.
• Leeuwin (pronounced loo-win) - We only went here because it's "the" quintessential Margaret River winery. It has that title because is has the Art Series Chardonnay which always wins tons of Australian and international awards. Unfortunately, it is an oaked chardonnay, and to my palate, is just rather overdone. We arrived at Leeuwin 20 minutes before closing, so the pourer was rushing us through the wines, which was the last thing we needed at our 5th winery of the day. But anyway, we went. I can tick the box.

After all this tasting, all we wanted to do was chill out at the hostel, and Lorenzo was gracious enough to take the reigns for dinner and mastermind a Thai chicken curry and rice dish for us with ingredients from the local grocery store and the rudimentary appliances in the hostel. It was tasty, filling, and quick - perfect.

Next day, we hit the road again towards Denmark. Yes, there is a town called Denmark in Southwest Australia, and it's a little known wine region as well! As a quick preview, we had to stop one day to let a herd of sheep cross the road! And then, the dog started to herd us and the car behind us. Good stuff.