Margaret River Winery Map: Plan Your Own Self-Drive Tour

The Margaret River wine region runs about 100 kilometres north to south. Most people try to see all of it in a day and end up seeing none of it properly. Here's how I'd plan it instead.

I've lived on Blythe Rd in Yallingup Siding for forty years. The workshop sits roughly in the northern third of the wine region, and I've watched several thousand visitors try to make a self-drive tour work. The ones who have a good day plan around three cellar doors. The ones who plan eight see two and feel cheated by all of them. Wine country here doesn't reward speed.

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There are three sub-zones along Caves Road. Forget the formal sub-regions on the wine label. For driving purposes, think of it like this.

Northern cluster — Yallingup end. Wills Domain, Clairault Streicker, Aravina, Hay Shed Hill, and a dozen smaller cellar doors. This is the older, quieter end. Closest to the coast. About 8 to 15 minutes from my workshop. Vasse Felix and Cullen are technically in the middle but they sit on this side of the divide for a driving day.

Middle — Wilyabrup. Cape Mentelle is on the southern edge of this stretch. The biggest concentration of cellar doors per kilometre of Caves Road. This is the heart of the region in production terms.

Southern — Margaret River town and Wallcliffe. Leeuwin, Voyager, Xanadu, Stella Bella. The town itself is 32 minutes from Blythe Rd if you stay on Caves Rd, which you'd want to, because the highway alternative is faster but less interesting.

The whole region sits between two capes, Cape Naturaliste in the north and Cape Leeuwin in the south. Caves Road runs the spine of it. The Indian Ocean is never more than ten minutes west of the cellar doors. That coastal proximity is what makes the wine what it is, and it's also why the drive itself is worth slowing down for.

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If it's your first time, do the north. You'll have a better day, you won't drive past nine cellar doors thinking should I have stopped there, and you'll see country that's quieter than the postcard end of the region.

1. 10.30am

   Wills Domain

   Tasting in the small upstairs room. The view down the valley sets the tone for the day. Don't book lunch here unless you're committing the whole day to one winery. Allow 45 minutes.
2. 12pm

   Clairault Streicker

   Long lunch on the lawn. Their chardonnay is the obvious order. The kitchen does ingredient-led food that holds its own without needing white tablecloths. Allow two hours.
3. 3pm

   Aravina Estate

   A glass on the verandah by the lake. Skip the proper tasting if you're already two wines deep. Allow 45 minutes.
4. 4pm

   John Streater Fine Furniture

   Ten minutes from Aravina via Caves Rd and Blythe Rd. Workshop window, gallery, the kettle on. Free entry. We're usually open to 5.

That's a comfortable day. Three cellar doors, one proper meal, a stop where the conversation is about something other than wine. You get back to your accommodation in daylight.

If you've done the north on a previous trip, or you've come specifically for the bigger names, then the middle and southern day looks different. You'll drive more. You'll pay more. The food gets more formal.

1. 10.30am

   Cullen Wines

   Biodynamic, family-run, the most interesting wines in the region depending on who you ask. Vanya Cullen has been making them for thirty years. The cellar door is small. Allow an hour because the staff are worth listening to.
2. 12.30pm

   Vasse Felix

   Lunch in the restaurant. The kitchen has been hatted for years. This is where the region built its food reputation. Allow two and a half hours. Don't rush the cheese course.
3. 3.30pm

   Voyager Estate

   A short tasting only, or skip lunch elsewhere and book the Discovery Menu here for the whole afternoon. White roses, Cape Dutch architecture, food held to the same standard the building demands. Allow an hour if it's a tasting, four if it's the degustation.

If you're doing Voyager's full degustation, that's the whole day. Don't try to add a third cellar door before it.

Caves Road itself. People drive between cellar doors with their eyes on the GPS. The road runs through karri country in patches, opens onto views down to the coast in others, and there are pull-offs every few kilometres where you can stop and walk for fifteen minutes. The Margaret River wine region is also the Cape to Cape Track region. The two overlap. A self-drive that ignores the bits between the wineries is a self-drive that misses half of what's good about being down here.

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The other thing people miss is the small producers. The five or six big names have most of the tourist traffic. There are at least fifty smaller cellar doors making wine that's at the same level, sometimes better. Hay Shed Hill, Brookland Valley, Woody Nook, Pierro, Cape Grace. Swings & Roundabouts fits the same end of the spectrum if you're after a wine bar over a tasting bar. Ask the staff at one of the big ones what they're drinking when they're not at work. The answers are interesting.

These are the rules I'd write on the back of the booking confirmation if I could.

• Two cellar doors per afternoon. Three if you're disciplined about glasses. Five is a different sport.
• Eat at one. Properly. A long lunch is half the day. Cellar door restaurants do their best work between noon and 2.30. Book ahead.
• Have a driver if you're tasting at more than two. Plenty of small operators in Dunsborough and Yallingup will pick you up, drop you home. The full case for guided versus self-drive is its own piece. You'll pay roughly what two extra bottles would cost. The roads are quiet but the police know exactly when the cellar doors close.
• Don't try to do north and south in the same day. It's an hour each way at the extremes. You'll burn an afternoon on driving.
• Autumn beats summer. April and May, the vintage is in, the cellar doors are full but not overrun, the light is the best the region gets. Summer is busy. Winter has its own quiet, but the rain can pin you indoors.

From the workshop on Blythe Rd, the rough drive times are:

Caves Road tops at 80km/h and it's windy in patches. Plan on the slower number. Parking at every cellar door is free and easy outside of long weekends. On long weekends, get there before noon or after three.

Google Maps occasionally tries to send people to Wildwood Rd when they're looking for Blythe Rd. Stay on Bussell Hwy, turn off at the Carbunup store, then onto Blythe Rd. That goes for finding the gallery, and it goes for several of the cellar doors at the northern end too.

Vasse Felix, Voyager, Leeuwin, Cullen, Cape Mentelle. These five are the names everyone has heard of. They earn their reputation but they also book out weeks ahead in peak season. If you have an inflexible date, book those first and plan the rest of the day around them. If you're flexible, book the smaller cellar doors and walk into the big ones on the day for a quick tasting.

The smaller cellar doors will give you more time. The staff at Wills Domain, Clairault Streicker, Hay Shed Hill, and the rest will sit and talk for half an hour if it's quiet. At the big names, you're one of forty bookings that lunchtime. Both work. Know which one you want.

I'm going to mention the gallery because if you're driving the northern cluster, you're driving past my front gate.

The workshop is on Blythe Rd in Yallingup Siding. Eight minutes from Wills Domain, ten from Aravina, fifteen from Vasse Felix. The northern self-drive route puts you within a couple of minutes of us at least twice in the day. We're open most days through to 5pm. The flag tells you if we're in. Free entry, workshop viewing window, no wine but a kettle.

That's not a sales pitch, it's a geography note. People who've been somewhere good with a glass or two in them tend to look at timber differently. I'd rather have them in the gallery on that afternoon than on a Monday morning.

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Two days is the right length for the wine region. Day one north. Day two middle and south. Sleep somewhere in between.

Day one I've already laid out above. Day two, do Cullen for the morning tasting, Vasse Felix for lunch, and either Voyager for an afternoon Discovery Menu (in which case skip the Vasse Felix lunch and go big at Voyager instead) or Leeuwin for a quieter afternoon glass. If you're a chardonnay drinker, Leeuwin's Art Series is one of the most decorated wines in the country. Worth the drive.

For where to sleep, staying near the wineries covers the northern, middle, and southern options.

For who the food cellar doors are, cellar doors with the best food.

For a closer-to-the-workshop loop with less driving, the five wineries near Yallingup.

For a formal sit-down version of the northern wine tour, the Yallingup wine tour route.

The wine bus tours that hit six cellar doors in a day. You'll be drunk by the second stop, you won't remember the wine at the third, and the staff will know you're on a bus the moment you walk in. They'll pour you the entry-level range and move you through.

The cellar doors that advertise on every billboard between Busselton and Margaret River. I'm not going to name them. Marketing budget is rarely the same as a kitchen budget or a winemaking budget. The names I've mentioned above don't need to advertise.

The temptation to buy a case at every cellar door. You'll spend two thousand dollars and lug a boot full of bottles home. Buy one bottle of the thing you actually liked at each place. Cellar doors all post nationally for a reasonable fee. Order the case when you get home and you've sobered up.

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If you have one day, do the northern cluster. If you have two, add the southern. If you have three, sleep down here and let the region work on its own clock. The wine you remember years later is almost never the one you rushed through.