waltzing matilda centre, winton, queensland blue … · 6/26/2018  · played its part and the wine...

10 THE AUSTRALIAN, TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 2018theaustralian.com.au/life LIFE

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nies, cockatoos and flamingoes. • aturahotels.com; mamalbury.com.au; visitalburywodonga.com

NATIMUK, VICTORIA Already well known as one of Aus-tralia’s foremost rock-climbingdestinations due to its proximity toMount Arapiles, Natimuk hasmore recently gained a reputationas an outdoor theatre with a differ-ence. Just as the lights and projec-tions of Vivid transform Sydneyevery winter, the biennial NatiFrinj arts festival, celebrating in-novative art by local and invitedartists, shines a light on this Gram-pians township. The highlight,against the backdrop of Natimuk’ssilos, is Dusk, a large-scale outdoorperformance work that changesevery evening. The silos act as thecanvas for aerial performances,projections, shadow puppetry,photography and music. There’salso a range of other activities fromsnail races to walking silent discotours. Book accommodation earlyat the Natimuk National Hotel, of-fering glamping tents to rooms.Beyond the festival are easy hikesor rides along the 10km Natimuk-Mount Arapiles rail trail, farmersmarkets to browse, heritage build-ings to behold and sensationalWimmera sunsets to toast withtipples from nearby wineries. Andwithin an hour is the beginning ofthe silo art trail.• natifrinj.com; visitvictoria.com; madeinnatimuk.com/dus

DERBY, TASMANIA Once a booming tin mining settle-ment, this riverside village innortheast Tasmania has had quitethe renaissance, welcoming up to30,000 visitors every year. It’s alldue to the construction of the80km Blue Derby Mountain Biketrail network in the hinterland,making this town arguably Aus-tralia’s mountain biking capital.Riders can expect well-designedtrails passing through incrediblescenery: between granite boulders,alongside waterfalls and streams,through fern-filled rainforest andrelics from the town’s tin-miningpast. Those preferring to watch theaction should go for the returningEnduro World Series, to be held inMarch next year. The biking boomhas helped to reinvigorate thelocal economy, evident in busi-nesses such as a wood-fired pizze-ria called The Hub, housed in anold butchery, where bikers like togather. There’s a MicroBru Ex-perience, showcasing Tasmaniancraft beers, ciders and traditionalsoft drinks, at the WeldboroughHotel, plus Bridestowe LavenderEstate to tour and Pipers Brook

Vineyard cellar door to sample. Intown, there are antiques to fossickthrough, and Devonshire teas andscones to enjoy. Bike hire is avail-able in town. • ridebluederby.com.au; discovertasmania.com.au

ESPERANCE, WESTERN AUSTRALIASearch Instagram under the hash-tag #Esperance and more than100,000 images pop up of bikini-wearing models posing next tokangaroos at Lucky Bay, or aerialshots of the peony pink of Lake Hil-lier juxtaposed with the turquoiseocean on Middle Island. Influen-cers of the world are descending onthis area on the south coast ofWestern Australia. Esperance isthe gateway to Cape Le Grand Na-tional Park, where wildflowersbloom, the aforementioned rooslaze on the silky white beach and#vanlife influencers camp at theexpanded campground. Bush-walking trails offer panoramas ofthe Recherche Archipelago. On thedrive there, be sure to stop at thefull-size replica of Stonehengeplonked on a cattle property. To get

Take a detour to these emerging Australian travel destinations

ANDREA BLACK

you see its bones or is it just afat bastard?

Whenever I’m speaking to acrowd about wine, I implore themto look beyond flavour and con-sider texture and shape, to thinkabout how the wine feels as well ashow it smells and tastes.

I’m attempting here to practisewhat I preach with notes on a pairof brilliant new release wines thathave much more to them thansimple aromas and flavours.

1. Dominique Portet Cabernet Sauvignon 2016, Yarra Valley ($60)Smells and tastes as good Yarracabernet should. More import-antly, it feels like it too. Wine-maker Ben Portet is obsessed withachieving a certain silkiness to thetannins that he’s pulled off herethrough picking not just when hethought the grapes had the rightflavour maturity but when he felt

the tannins too were just right.Careful extended maceration hasplayed its part and the wine hasthis fine, diaphanous quality that isutterly beautiful, its finely con-structed frame clearly evidentbeneath lightly draped silk.

Gorgeous.

2. Tonic Mataro 2017, Clare Valley ($36)Winemaker Glenn Barry is manythings but elegant is not one ofthem. While the Portet wine is allabout grace and charm, Barry’suncouth and unkempt mataro is abrilliant reflection of the wine-maker and the variety. The wine isblack and brooding, slightly hairyand dishevelled. It makes youthink it’s been grown in some ofthe blackest dirt on earth. It’schewy and a little gritty, like eatingmeat off a bone pulled straightfrom the fire. It’s wild, slightlyscary and utterly delicious.

Indulge the senses, even the tactile

GRAPE VINENICK RYAN

The newcomer and the veteranMELROSE, SOUTH AUSTRALIAThis gateway to the Flinders Ranges is gaining momentum with the increased popularity of the Fat Tyre Festival, an annual mountain biking celebration. At this year’s event, held earlier this month, a festival village in the Melrose Museum grounds featured movies, live music, markets and a disco. Melrose has established itself as a year-round hub for mountain bikers, with a 100km range of trails among the ochre ridges and deep gorges of Mount Remarkable National Park. In town is a bike shop for repairs and bike hire. The national park is also popular for bushwalking, the highlight being the hike to the Mount Remarkable summit overlooking the Spencer Gulf. Back in town, the heritage Jacka Brothers Brewery (pictured above), which closed during the Depression, is being transformed into a microbrewery, cellar door, event space and accommodation with a $400,000 grant from the SA government. The brew flowed this month for the first time in 83 years, and reports suggest the Remarkable Ale is a taste sensation. Boutique hotel and pub the North Star Hotel is also worth checking out. • melrose-mtremarkable.org.au; bikemelrose.com.au

GOLD COAST, QUEENSLANDAnyone who visited the Gold Coast for the Commonwealth Games knows it’s no longer just a destination geared to families who love theme parks. Cutting-edge cuisine, batch breweries and unique markets have brought contemporary cool to the Gold Coast, and the new hotel The Darling has added a dash of luxury. Book into one of the 57 suites at the Darling in the new-look Star Gold Coast and take in the view while lolling by the infinity pool (pictured above), perched 67m above ground and 5m beyond the side of the tower. The refurbished Star Grand is also on site. Cuisine highlights include the five-course tasting menu at Little Truffle at Mermaid Beach, breakfast at Elk Espresso or No Name Lane, both in Broadbeach, and the street food stalls at Miami Marketta. Palm Beach has 50 restaurants and bars worth exploring including casual dining at The Collective and newcomer Mr Bengel. Try their breakfast tortillas. Beyond the beach, what used to be an industrial estate in Currumbin has been transformed into a haven for the hip. Go for a tasting at Balter Brewing Company, co-owned by surfer Mick Fanning, then check out the artworks and music at nearby creative space Dust Temple.• destinationgoldcoast.com; thestargoldcoast.com.au

BLUE DERBY TRAILS, DERBY, TASMANIAWALTZING MATILDA CENTRE, WINTON, QUEENSLAND ‘KACHOONG’ CLIMB, MT ARAPILES, WESTERN VICTORIA

hotel’s casual, shared-plate res-taurant, makes a stay at the hotelworthy of at least two nights. Far-ther afield are hikes among thesouthern Grampians and thearboretum to explore. • royalmail.com.au

ALBURY, NSW A cultural boom is upon the city ofAlbury in southern NSW, thanksin part to MAMA, the Murray ArtMuseum Albury. The $10.5 millioncomplex, which has one of thecountry’s finest collections of con-temporary Australian photogra-phy and which recently exhibitedfinalists from the National Pho-tography Prize 2018, has helpedboost visitor numbers to the river-side city. Also on show is the exhi-bition Land & Title, named afterthe building MAMA is housed in,and featuring artworks that relateto artists’ experience of the area,including Russell Drysdale’s Con-voy on a road near Albury andMary Jane Griggs’s Arboreta se-ries. Beyond MAMA is the Yindy-amarra Sculpture Walk along theMurray River, and part of thebroader Wagirra Trail, where indi-genous artists have created 11works inspired by the narratives ofthe Wiradjuri people includingBogong Moth Migration by RuthDavys and The Bigger Picture byKatrina Weston. A hotel thatcomplements the cultural ex-perience is the Atura Albury,where common spaces featurepops of colour with sculptural bun-

Museum, the brainchild of Davidand Judy Elliott, who discovered asauropod fossil on their propertynear Winton. Also designed byCox Architecture, the building isinspired by the site’s deep rockfissures. Inside is the world’s larg-est collection of Australian dino-saur fossils. The museum’s latestattraction, Dinosaur Canyon, re-creates life as it would have ap-peared during the CretaceousPeriod.• australianageofdinosaurs.com; matildacentre.com.au; experiencewinton.com.au

DUNKELD, VICTORIADunkfeld became a culinary hot-spot a decade ago when chef DanHunter opened The Royal MailHotel. While Hunter has movedon to Brae in Birregurra, there’snew reason to visit: the spectacu-larly designed Wickens at RoyalMail under executive chef RobinWickens, which opened late lastyear. An extensive degustationmenu aside, the timber-framedroom with ceiling-to-floor win-dows — designed by Melbourne-based, Dunkeld-born architectNick Byrne — affords spectacularviews of Mount Sturgeon andMount Abrupt, as well as the chefsat work inside. The menu evolvesaccording to what’s in season inthe impressive garden — throughwhich you can take a chef-led tour— and the 28,000-bottle wine cel-lar can be perused with a somme-lier. The Parker Street Project, the

a genuine feel for the landscape,take a Kepa Kurl eco discoverytour, where indigenous guides in-troduce visitors to Noongar hunt-ing and gathering practices. You’llget to see some of the country’smost southern rock art and tastebush food along the way. You canalso take a scenic wildlife cruise tospot dolphins and whales, and visitMiddle Island to see what all thesocial media fuss is about at LakeHillier (pre-booking required). • westernaustralia.com; esperancestonehenge.com.au; kepakurl.com.au; esperancecruises.com.au

WINTON, QUEENSLAND There’s more reason to return toWinton after the recent reopeningof the Waltzing Matilda Centre,replacing the original centre thatwas destroyed by fire in 2015. Feat-uring waves of concrete and rustedsteel, renowned architecturalpractice Cox designed the buildingto reflect the significance of BanjoPaterson’s lyrics. On entry, thewalls undulate like the sides of agorge before opening to revealeroded water paths to a metaphor-ical central billabong. You canview the More Than a Name exhi-bition, telling the story of Winton’scontribution to World War I, andvisit an art gallery as well as theQantilda Museum, where the his-tory of the area is displayed includ-ing the birth of Qantas. Anotherlocal design masterpiece is theAustralian Age of Dinosaurs

TRAVEL

NEW HORIZONS

HELLFIRE BAY, ESPERANCE, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Wine is a complex subject cloakedin myth and misconception.

Perhaps the most commonmisunderstanding about wine —and how to express one’s compre-hension of it — is what I call the“the greengrocer’s shopping listsyndrome”.

Many people think the bestway to display their acuteappreciation of a glass ofwine is to stick theirsnout in it and reel off adozen different fruitand vegetables as if theywere trying to help ablind man navigate thesalad bar at Sizzler.

But that’s only half right.Wine’s ability to trigger olfactorymemories is one of its greatestcharms. It’s like a liquid lyrebird,able to mimic the signature scentsand flavours of a multitude ofthings, organic and inorganic, ani-mal, vegetable and mineral.

There’s real pleasure to be had

in discovering what remembranceof things past will be triggered bythe first encounter with a greatglass, but the enjoyment of awine involves more than justaroma and flavour. They are theeasiest handles to grasp when itcomes to appreciating wine, butnot the only ones.

It’s easy to see why we’reall so hung up on descrip-

tors. The scents andtastes of wine are drawnfrom a common andwidely understood

vocabulary. Say a pinotnoir tastes like “straw-

berries”, and even a teetotal-ler will have some appreciation ofwhat you’re talking about.

But making their tasting noteseasier for the consumer to com-prehend is only one reason whywine writers liberally sprinkletheir work with flowers, fruits anda little bit of funk.

There’s also the fact that we get

WINE

paid by the word. A wine writerwho describes only three flavoursin a wine is half as well off as theone who lists six.

But look at the wine writer’snotebook, or eavesdrop on thediscussion taking place amongjudges at a wine show, and you’llfind that descriptions of aromaand flavour are just part of abigger picture.

It’s the textures and shapes ofthe wines that feature more heavi-ly, the physical sensations thewine creates in the mouth throughelements like acid and tannin thatreally define it.

The way the wine moves acrossthe palate is important.

Is it ponderous and clumsy,weighed down by overripe fruitand clunky tannin, or does itglide effortlessly and withoutdeviation right through to thefinish?

Is the wine lithe and sinewy,or muscular and tough? Can1

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