A Full-Day Margaret River Wine Tour From Yallingup

I'm not a wine writer. But I've been driving between these cellar doors since 1982.

What follows isn't a guide to the best wines. There are better people than me to tell you that. It's a guide to a day. The route, the timing, where to lunch, which cellar doors reward a visit and which ones I'd skip if you only have one day. Pamela and I do a version of this drive every couple of months, often with visitors. It works.

A note before we start: this is a self-drive itinerary. To drink seriously, hire a driver. Margaret River Exclusive Tours and a couple of others run small group tours that will collect you from your accommodation. Otherwise nominate a driver, spit at every tasting, and pace yourself through lunch. The roads here are narrow and the road statistics around here are not forgiving.

Photo: Vasse Felix, CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Starting from Yallingup, the loop runs south along Caves Rd, into the Wilyabrup sub-region for lunch, then west and back north towards Yallingup along the coast. Roughly 75km of driving over the course of a day. You're never more than 25 minutes from home base.

Here's the order I'd run it.

1. 10am

   Wills Domain, Yallingup

   Open with a hill-top tasting and the valley view. Five minutes from Yallingup.
2. 11:30am

   Clairault Streicker, Caves Rd

   Quieter tasting room, well-made wines. Twenty minutes south.
3. 1pm

   Vasse Felix, Cowaramup

   Long lunch. Booked ahead.
4. 3:30pm

   Voyager Estate or Aravina Estate

   Afternoon cellar door — pick one. Voyager for the formal version, Aravina for the relaxed.
5. 5pm

   Drive back via Caves Rd to Yallingup

   Stop at Canal Rocks if the light is good.
6. 5:30pm

   John Streater Fine Furniture, Blythe Rd

   Last stop before dinner — workshop and gallery, ten minutes from your accommodation.

Starting in Yallingup, Wills Domain is the closest cellar door of any size. It sits high on a ridge looking over the valley back towards the coast. The cellar door is open and bright, the staff know the wines properly, and the food in the restaurant is consistently good, though we'll be eating at Vasse Felix later, so save the appetite.

Try the chenin blanc and the cabernet. Both are well-made and tell you something specific about this sub-region.

Twenty minutes south on Caves Rd. Clairault Streicker has one of the calmer tasting rooms in the region: fewer day-trippers, more time with the wines. They make a particularly good semillon-sauvignon blanc and the cabernet-merlot blends here have a confidence I like.

With time in hand and the kitchen open, the food matches the wine. We're not eating here today, but file it away for next trip.

Photo: Stuart Sevastos, CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Of course Vasse Felix. The oldest winery in Margaret River, opened in 1967 by Tom Cullity. The vines are now in their sixth decade, proper old growth by Australian standards, and the wines have the depth that comes from old wood and old roots.

Book the restaurant ahead. Even on a quiet Tuesday they get full. The chef's selection menu is the easy call: courses come matched to wines, you don't have to think, and the kitchen knows the cellar back to front. Allow two and a half hours.

The art gallery upstairs is worth twenty minutes after lunch. The Holmes à Court family own the estate and they've built a serious art collection. The works rotate through the year, and there's almost always something I want to stop and look at.

an afternoon after Vasse Felix

After Vasse Felix you'll be ready for one more cellar door, not three. Two strong options.

The grand option. Dutch-gabled cellar door, manicured gardens, a long degustation menu to extend lunch into dinner, but also straightforward tastings after eating elsewhere. The chenin blanc and the cabernets are exceptional. This is the closest thing Margaret River has to a Napa-style cellar door: formal, finished, run with care.

The other end of the spectrum. Aravina is family-run, kid-friendly, with a small museum of vintage cars and motorcycles attached to the cellar door. The wines are well-made and the staff have the time to talk you through them properly. Travelling with kids, or wanting something less formal after Vasse Felix, Aravina is the call.

Honest advice: after two cellar doors and a long lunch at Vasse Felix, you've had enough. After a good day, drive back via Canal Rocks and the coast, watch the light come down on the rocks, and call it. The wine isn't going anywhere.

Photo: David Stanley, CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Drive Caves Rd north from Wilyabrup back towards Yallingup. The road runs through the wine country with occasional glimpses of the ocean on the west. About 25 minutes.

With the light right, peel off at Canal Rocks for half an hour. Park, walk over the footbridge, watch the swell push through the granite channels. It's the small thing that turns a wine day into a Margaret River day.

Coming back from Aravina or Voyager, the gallery on Blythe Rd is roughly on the way home. We close at 4pm most days but call ahead and I'm often around later for visitors who've planned their day. The workshop is the antidote to a long cellar door afternoon — quiet, focused, smelling of jarrah oil. Google Maps sometimes misdirects via Wildwood Rd; stay on Bussell Hwy, turn at the Carbunup store, then Blythe Rd.

Photo: Harry Foley, CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

A full day is four cellar doors at most, to remember any of them. So plenty got cut from this version. Some that are worth your time on the next trip:

• Cullen Wines. One of the great biodynamic estates in Australia. The chardonnay is among the best in the country. Lunch here is excellent.
• Cape Mentelle. Long-established, serious cabernet. Quieter than Vasse Felix and Voyager.
• Leeuwin Estate. Further south, the Art Series chardonnay is legendary, and the lunches in the summer concert season are an event in themselves.
• Stella Bella. Small cellar door, very well-made wines, family feel.
• Howard Park. A working winery cellar door, less polished but a serious operation.
• Brown Hill Estate. Underrated, good value, friendly staff.
• Moss Wood. Cult status for the cabernet; by appointment only, worth the effort when you can get in.

There's something like 200 wine producers in Margaret River. You can't do them all in a week. Pick four for the day, do them properly, come back.

A few things, in no particular order.

The wines have got better. Margaret River was a serious region when I arrived in the early 80s, but the wines now are at a different level: more nuanced, more confident, less trying to prove a point.

The lunches have got better too. Twenty years ago, cellar door food was a cheese plate and a ploughman's. Now you can eat at Vasse Felix or Voyager or Cullen as well as you can eat anywhere in Australia.

But the best afternoons are still the simple ones. One cellar door, one long lunch, a drive back along the coast with the windows down. The region rewards restraint.

the Yallingup wineries guide

where the kitchen is as good as the wine

a foodie weekend in Yallingup

Photo: Michelle Corcoran, CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

The wine, the country, the people who make it: all part of the same conversation. Same as the timber I work with. Four decades of one and the other on Blythe Rd, and they still surprise me.