And now for something different. 

A wine tour through the Coal River Valley region with The Long Lunch Tour Company. Another leisurely start for the day. Bacon and egg wraps for breakfast before our scheduled pick up from the caravan park at 10.20am. Our driver was a lovely chap called John, who would help us navigate our way through this particular wine region. We boarded his mini bus and headed to Hobart to pick up a couple from Hong Kong, who had three days holiday in Tasmania. The girls were already a little restless – Ava, in particular expressed her dissatisfaction in going to “another vineyard”! After visiting many vineyards with the girls I knew they would tolerate our day – I just wasn’t as convinced our Hong Kong guests would be so tolerable of the girls antics. Secretly I was a little concerned. How to entertain the girls while enjoying our vineyard experiences. Time to act fast and come up with a plan.

After picking up the additional passengers, John advised us of the plan. We were to visit Coal Valley Vineyard, Frogmore Creek Winery, Pooley Wines, Richmond Tasting House and  Wicked Cheese – all establishments would be visited over a six hour period. Our tour guide advised us that Tasmania produces one percent of Australia’s total wines AND 50% of those wines are pinot noir. It’s shaping up to be a lovely day!

First stop Coal Valley Vineyard for a wine tasting followed by lunch. The vineyard was set in a spectacular location set high overlooking the ocean. Expectations were high for our first taste of the day. I had also developed a cunning plan – Caroline was equiped with pencils and drawing pads for the girls entertainment, all that was required was a little competition! I set a drawing competition for the girls, where they had to draw what they saw at each of the stops. I offered a monetary award for the best drawing and offered $1 for the Coal Valley Vineyard winner. This gave us time to enjoy learning about the wines and would keep the girls occupied. Woo hoo!

Unfortunately our initial experience was not that spectacular – the wines were satisfactory, as was the wine ‘specialist’ whom struggled at answering Caroline’s questions. The best of their bunch in my opinion were the 2017 Riesling and the 2017 Sauvignon Blanc. No wines purchased! The real winner for Coal Valley Vineyard was Ava who’s drawing received first prize!

We headed a few minutes down the road to our second destination Frogmore Creek Winery – already very familiar with their delicious Iced Riesling, having previously sampled this at a pop up degustation evening in Beecroft. Frogmore Creek has two varieties they produce at the same winery, one under the Frogmore brand, the other as 42 Degrees South – a significant step up on the first vineyard.

Ava and Audrey assumed their seats and prepared for the second stage of the drawing competition, which was to be judged by the wine specialist serving us. We had a fantastic tasting at Frogmore Creek. Caroline reminded me that we needed wine for our next few weeks of travels, so I happily obliged with an order of the 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot – good tanning structure, meaty complex wine, the Ruby Pinot Noir – Smoke, integrated oak,  in the similar style to that of a port and a 2009 Frogmore Creek unfiltered pinot noir, which was extremely interesting! More dense than a standard pinot,  the wine had significant body about it, a real sense of earthy textures. Salivating thinking about it – just need to convince Caroline that we need a wine with dinner tonight 🙂

The other winner from Frogmore Creek was Audrey, who hands down deserved the $2 prize money for her attention to detail on the unicorns she drew. Trust Audrey, she found miniature toy unicorns for sale in the Frogmore Creek gift shop!

A little more of a trek down the road and we arrived at Pooley Wines. A breathtaking cellar door next to their dwelling, made from sandstone with a tin roof. Caroline and I felt that we knew of Pooley Wines, but couldn’t put a finger on how we knew of it. After tasting the first wine accompanied by Bruny Island Oysters (brought to us by our driver), we realised that we had experienced these wines via yet another degustation experience we had earlier in the year at Cafe Lyon, Lindfield where Pooley Wines were paired to the courses. For me their 2017 Cooinda Vale Chardonnay and Pinot Noirs were far better than the wines produced from their Butchers Hill plot. While the two areas are quite close together (15minutes) it is suppressing that if all other things are kept the same, wine style, wine maker, how much of a difference the terroir makes! For this drawing competition, Audrey cleverly asked the wine specialist what was their favourite colour (which was yellow). As you may expect, Audrey then proceeded to colour her drawing yellow, while Ava drew a very intricate drawing. The wine specialist concluded that the competition was a draw, awarding $2 each to Ava and Audrey. 

With two more stops to go, it was time to change tempo moving from wine to spirits. Caroline had a few gin varietals, who knew Tasmania produced so much gin, while I had a few whiskies. Caroline seemed to enjoy a sloe gin, while for me the whiskies are “not to my taste”. The drawing tally before scoring was $4 for Ava and $3 to Audrey. Being later in the drawing competition season, the stakes were high. Who would win? Ava was determined and pulled out her finest drawing yet, taking an additional $3 and moving up to a $7 to $3 lead.

In the car once again, we arrived at our final destination and the decider round of the drawing competition – a $4 prize pool to the winner! Walking through the car park Ava pulled me aside and said “Daddy, I am not going to draw this round because I want Audrey to win. If she wins this round we will have the same amount of money”. I was absolutely taken aback by Ava’s statement, expecting her to do her best artwork to win, and was pleasantly surprised by the humility she displayed. After entering the cheese shop, where everyone participated in tasting, I awarded Audrey the final prize – the scoreboard was a tie (and I was out of pocket $14). We sampled some lovely cheeses and purchased four different varieties to enjoy over the next few days of travels.

Arriving back to the caravan park, we fed the girls and put them to bed before completing our standard evening ritual of blog writing, research and reading.