It's easy to forgive Yarra Valley locals for being crazy about their area. As you drive through some of Victoria's loveliest countryside, blue hills off in the distance, vineyards coating the hill slopes, past the odd large winery - stone-solid and appearing centuries old ¡V it's not hard to fantasise that, yes, this could well be France. Until, just then, a yellow advisory road sign with the symbol of a squat black animal brings you right back to reality: Wombats Crossing, it announces!
Talk to Suzanne Halliday for five minutes about the Yarra Valley, and ¡K but that is impossible, Suzanne is only just beginning to get wound up about this region in that time.
Passionate about the place, Suzanne ticks off the attractions: the restaurants and cafes, crisp mountain air, proximity to the city, places for country walks and of course the food producers. And the wines.
And who better to know about the last two than she? After all Halliday has spent endless energy and most of her spare time in recent years, promoting and helping to organize the Yarra Valley Regional Food Group and its FoodTrail, and what Suzanne doesn't know about the local wines, her husband James Halliday (yes, that James Halliday, the affable wine guru) can fill in.
Several years ago, Suzanne Halliday found herself at a loose end, which was unusual.
"I tried the 'ladies who lunch' scene for a while," she admits, "but I soon lost interest and reverted to what I really am a workaholic."
Noticing the number of small growers and food producers in the Yarra Valley, she spent days, weeks really, just driving around, peeping over fences, seeing what people were planting. This 'research' gave her the vision to begin the FoodTrail. The first brochure was published in October 1998, and just 15 people turned up to the first members' meeting. Now there are well over a hundred in the group, and eighty or so epicurean hideaways ¡V ranging from cheese makers to trout farms, and organic vegetable growers ¡V hang out the bright blue and orange signs welcoming visitors to the Trail.
"It's so busy now," says Halliday "Today it's all word of mouth. People come to us."
The word 'gourmet' is often bandied around, its meaning almost lost. Yet the Yarra Valley manages to revive the term in the most practical way, and with staggering variety. The wines of course, are fine and confident, but the food grown on these fertile slopes and valleys make perfect partners.
Then there is cheese, from goats and sheep as well as cows, orchards growing every type of cool climate fruit, lavender, herbs and honey. There's even farm fresh clotted cream. All sorts of berries abound in these temperate conditions too, and many places even allow you the tactile enjoyment of getting down and dirty as you pick-your-own.
To match the wealth of produce, of course there have to be restaurants and accommodation. And it's all here - everything from economy to elegant, suiting all needs. For this really is the key to the region. An urban getaway for some, a back-to-nature dip for others. But always a sensual and gastronomic experience.
Sue O'Brien, General Manager of Chateau Yering which opened in 1997, agrees with Suzanne Halliday.
"Obviously wine is a huge industry here, and the food and wine focus is very strong," she says. "Here, at Chateau Yering, we offer a good selection of wines and foods - everyone talks about it, how it is matched so well, and that's because the synergy is so good. We see our guests come in stressed from the city and then we see their spirits just lift."
No wonder when they can book an in-room massage, and there is a Clarins beauty salon on site.
In fact, it's precisely this mix of earthy homespun products, restrained elegance and downright luxurious comfort that makes the region so irresistible.
"Everyone is able to travel these days," says Halliday, "but travellers are becoming much more discerning, and it's imperative that producers are globally aware. Tourism sells images and dreams but it must deliver."
It is this unyielding resolve to improve even the best product that gives Halliday the edge, and is the core principle of the Food Group.
But there is more.
"It's all about networks and liaisons - partnerships - and it would be impossible to exist without those," she says.
Some say it would be impossible for the Food Group to have existed without her. A shower of awards and accolades have come her way in the last few years: a Tourism Award in 2000, an Australian Gourmet Traveller Jaguar Award for Excellence in Gastronomic Travel in 2001, and this year she has been made an adjunct professor of Swinburne University at Lilydale, and dubbed a Legend at the recent Melbourne Food and Wine Festival.
Another legend of the Yarra Valley is the Produce Store located in an original 100 year old winery building situated on the site of Victoria's first vineyard at Yering Station. Here the goods are selected from over 100 Food Group members, so there are jams and chutneys, verjuice, pickled lemons, fruit vinegars and old fashioned lemon cordial, lavender honey and mustards, plus bottled natural spring water, trout products and an ice cream that is too good to be true. Regular visitors to the Valley also know to time their trip to coincide with the Farmer's Market, held on the third Sunday each month.
Undoubtedly, much of the Yarra Valley's success comes back to its position. Almost commuting distance from Melbourne - around an hour - it makes the ideal country weekend bolt-hole. It's perfectly possible to leave work on Friday afternoon, spend three nights under the snowy doonas of a five star hotel or B&B and return to work on Monday morning.
So how to spend a day in the Valley? Begin with a leisurely breakfast in the Sweetwater Cafe at Chateau Yering, where you have spent the night. Make sure you sample the local berries and fruits in season although you hardly need a bite after the magnificent dinner you had in Chateau Yering's Eleonore's restaurant last night.
If you were more energetic, you would have been up at dawn to go ballooning over the vineyards, and you would have already been sipping champagne after touchdown at the gourmet breakfast.
But today the program is simple:
First a trip to the Produce Store at Yering Winery, where you can pick up some snacks and maybe a present for your friends at home, plus a FoodTrail brochure.
The trail is easy to follow and every recommended stop displays the distinctive blue and orange Yarra Valley FoodTrail sign. Some places have seasonal schedules so phone before visiting if it's not peak season, and remember a few are by appointment only.
Lunch at a winery restaurant lets you see the talent of the local chefs at work with the fine local produce and then, with almost thirty wineries in the region, you must schedule a wine-tasting at a few and plan to load up with some liquid souvenirs for your cellar.
Perhaps then, it is time for a stroll, to work off the effects of this decadent day. Where better than the Singing Gardens of CJ Dennis, at Toolangi, where the Songs of the Sentimental Bloke were written?
If you can spend the night, check into The Sebel Lodge Yarra Valley. It's new, luxurious and located at the Heritage Golf and Country Club, the only private Jack Nicklaus Signature Course in Australia.
Tonight you have the choice of dining in the Sebel's Bella Restaurant which of course features local food and wine, or choosing from one of the Yarra Valley's many fine restaurants and cafes.
And so to bed. A day is not enough to see even a fraction of what is on offer here, you realise. Next time you will come for a long, long weekend.
For there will be a next time. You know that already.
But if you do this, be careful to wipe the smirk off your face before you get to the office, or your colleagues may ask a few questions, and before you know it, they'll all be doing the same thing!
The Yarra Valley is located about an hour's drive northwest of Melbourne and is reached by the Maroondah Highway.
Chateau Yering Historic House & Eleonore's Restaurant
Melba Highway, Yering, Phone: (03) 9237 3333, Email: info@chateau-yering.com.au,
Hotel open all year Eleonore's open for lunch Saturday & Sunday; dinner, daily.
The Sebel Lodge Yarra Valley
Heritage Ave, Heritage Golf & Country Club, Chirnside Park.
Phone: (03) 9760 3333, freecall 1800 002 105, Email: reservations@tslyv.mirvac.com.au,
Open all year
Singing Gardens of CJ Dennis
98 Kinglake Rd, Toolangi.
Phone: (03) 5962 9282. Open all year
Domaine Chandon Australia
"Green Point", Maroondah Highway, Coldstream.
Phone: (03) 9739 1110 10.30am - 4.30pm daily
De Bortoli Winery and Restaurant
De Bortoli Restaurant, Pinnacle Lane, Dixons Creek.
Phone: (03) 5965 2271,
Cellar door: 10am - 5pm daily Restaurant open for lunch, daily; dinner, Saturday
Yering Station cellar door and Restaurant
38 Melba Highway, Yarra Glen,
Phone: (03) 9730 1107
10am - 5pm weekdays, 10am - 6pm weekends. Market 3rd Sunday of the month.
Yering Station Produce Store
38 Melba Highway, Yarra Glen,
Phone: (03) 9730 1107
Weekdays, 10am - 5pm. Weekends, 10am - 6pm
Victoria's Bed and Breakfast Getaways
available from Tourism Victoria
Yarra Valley Tourism
The Old Court House, Harker St, Healesville.
Phone: (03) 5962 2600 Email: info@yarravalleytourism.asn.au
Yarra Valley Food Group
Phone: (03) 9513 0677
Visit Victoria
January: 11 - 26C
July: 4C - 12C
Summers are dry and warm, most rain falls during winter when temperatures can get chilly.
4WD
