Yarra Valley Road Trip Part 2

Yarra Valley hosts a number of Farmer's Markets, and I was fortunate enough on my first visit a few months back to chance upon one. They had a lot of gorgeous things on sale. 

There are a number of stores selling food too.

For more information on when farmer's markets are available, check here and here.


One of the reasons why I was excited for this trip was because of Yarra Valley Dairy, a dairy farm in the area that produces and sells cheese.

The strong unmistakable scent of cow you-know-what greeted us as we opened the car door, and we made a beeline straight towards the farm interior, which has air conditioning. Yarra Valley Dairy do have tastings available, and it's complimentary for a group of 7 or less, as the waitress informed us curtly. In my schoolboy days, I was hauled to the Discipline's Mistress's office for a variety of reasons of sorts, and I'm pretty sure the DM used a friendlier tone to me than this server.  Perhaps she couldn't handle the scent of the cow droppings either?

The cheese tasting started off with a Black Savourine ($14/200g), an aged goat cheese shaped in a pyramid. It was extremely strong tasting, and the acrid taste immediately put Miss XS off the rest of the tasting. I would have thought that the order of the cheese samples should start off mild before building up to the strong-tasting ones so we can appreciate the subtlety of the milder cheeses. Scaring off potential customers with a strong-tasting cheese on the onset seems to defeat the purpose of trying to sell cheese to them. But then again, I'm no cheese expert. The server seemed surprised the rest of us wanted to continue with the rest of the cheeses though. 

I wasn't sure why she had a bad attitude. We're all such lovely people. Really. And speaking for myself, working in a cheese shop sounds like such a fun thing to do. I'll love to try. And whenever someone asks for a Black Savourine, I'll tell them "It's fourteen MOO-lah!"  

We also sampled the White Savourine ($14/200g), which we liked and ended up buying. 

I also particularly enjoyed the Juno ($15/jar), and the Saffy ($14/jar) was pretty good as well.

Yarra Valley Dairy also stocks other products, which I would have loved to try, but I wasn't sure if the butter could survive the ride home.

Because we were craving chocolate (and a warm reception!), we soon left for Yarra Valley Chocolaterie. I saw the giant sample bowls brimming with chocolate, and I felt much more welcome. (And yes! You can sample to your hearts' content.)

I wandered about the giant store for a bit, but what intrigued me the most was the chocolatiers hard at work behind the glass wall. 

On my previous visit,  I was curious whether Yarra Valley Chocolaterie produces their own chocolate, and brought it up when I got into a conversation with one of the friendly staff. I was told that they source their chocolate from Callebaut (a Belgian chocolate brand). Which wasn't much of a surprise, and given how reputable Callebaut chocolate is among chocolatiers, as well as how intensive the chocolate-making process is. (There are only about a handful of chocolate-makers, and just as few bean-to-bar chocolatiers in the world.)  In an industry where the chocolate-making process is a closely guarded secret, some chocolatiers prefer to keep mum even about the brand of chocolate they use. Yarra Valley chocolaterie's transparency about the source of their chocolate is like a breath of fresh air.

 I was tempted to buy a box of the couverture white chocolate and start baking up a storm. 

Although not strictly in our food list, we sat down in the cafe because we were unable to resist the warmth and happiness of the place. See? Yarra Valley Dairy, is a smile that hard to muster up? 

There were plenty of ice cream flavours to choose from, from chocolate (which was surprisingly disappointing) to fruit sorbets. I enjoyed walking around the picturesque lawn while lapping at the ice cream. 

 

After the Chocolaterie, we moved on to Chandon. I had a good experience there in the past, but this time, we got there too late to sample their selection of wines. (It costs $5 per person, but you can use the $5 to offset any bottle you purchase.)

We did manage to snap some wonderful pictures though. I promise I didn't saturate the colours!

On another visit, we went to Oakridge Winery, which was another well-known winery in the region. The tasting was complimentary, and we got a couple of 2012 Shiraz. The blonde server saw us and greeted us with ni hao. I was pretty used to it and smiled back. He then told us he spent the much of the last decade working in Beijing, and promptly began to speak fluently in Chinese. He was pretty amazing. 

Satisfied with all our purchases, and as the sun slowly dipped below the horizon, I realised we had enough alcohol to float a boat off towards the sunset with. Which, I have to admit, is a pretty kickass idea.  

Missed out on Part 1 about Innocent Bystander and a couple of breweries in the area? Bet you skip to the last chapter of books too. Check out the link above!