Wine Touring
Bendigo is a comfortable 150Km drive north from Melbourne's Tullamarine airport and a perfect overnight stop between Adelaide and the snowfields.
The city is renowned for its graceful Victorian buildings, fabulous golden history and fine dining with a wide range of accomodation from the historic Shamrock Hotel through modern motels to cosy B&Bs and Farm Stays.
Regular visitors to the Bendigo Wine Region fondly refer to it as `The Winemakers' Region' since the majority of the wineries in the region are family owned with the winery and cellar door outlet set amongst the vines from which the wine is made and visitors to the region will often meet the winemakers, sleeves rolled up, tending their vines or working in the winery.
There are a number of tour operators to assist you travel around the wineries of the Bendigo region -
Bendigo Winery Tours - the ultimate wine and food experience.
Visit a selection of wineries and chat with the winemakers. Enjoy a gourmet lunch and sample the region's sensational wines. A great day out for social groups, conference groups or just a group of friends.
Contact your hosts Shane & Lynne Colbert on: Phone/Fax: (03) 5439 3635, Mobile: 0411 873 788 or Email.
Central Wine Tours - in search of the perfect drop.
Amidst the variety of rural vistas that make-up our regions diverse topography you'll discover both small estate vineyards and large scale enterprises all with one thing in common, to pursue their passion to produce outstanding wines.
You'll enjoy a gourmet lunch at one of our winery/cafes, sample some outstanding wines and best of all.....no driving. Check out our website for details and bookings. Contact your host Col Scott on 0408 006 603 or visit www.centralwinetours.com.au
Tri-Bendigo Wine Tour
Three of Bendigo’s leading wineries have joined together to
offer wine lovers the Tri-Bendigo wine tasting experience. The wineries include Balgownie Estate,
Sandhurst Ridge Winery and Connor Park – conveniently located only 10 minutes
from each other. With up to 30 wines
available for tasting, this is a superb experience.
Contact one of the participating wineries for more
information.
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The climate and soil of Central Victoria, with its deep soils, spring
rain and long hours of summer sunshine, are ideal for growing shiraz
and cabernet sauvignon and the region is famous for its rich deeply
flavoured varietal wines. Although the latest technology is used to ensure consistently high quality wine, visitors will not find mechanical harvesters, tank farms or massive metal catwalks. Traditional hands on techniques include open stainless steel fermentation, small barrel maturation in French and American oak, egg white fining and hand bottling and labelling.
Many of the wineries use Portavin Estate Bottlers, a mobile bottling line which provides an on-site bottling, labelling and packaging service. If your visit coincides with bottling, you may be co-opted onto the line to give someone a tea-break.
Cellar door outlets are frequently run by members of the family and the atmosphere is casual and friendly.
The Bendigo region's wines reflect the differing micro-climates to be found in this diverse area.
From the cooler granite and sand vineyards found in the south-east to the loam and clay typical of the warmer areas to the west of Bendigo in the Loddon Valley.
Further south the region takes in the historic towns of Dunolly and Maryborough on the broad alluvial flats that were once home to thousands of diggers scraping to find gold in the buried leads beneath the rolling landscape.
At quiet times visitors may find themselves chatting with the winemaker or having an impromptu tour of the winery where the new wine is developing in barrel.
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