Is there anything Melbourne drinkers love more than a secret bar, hidden in a city laneway? How about a hidden vineyard? Melbourne has a few.
I’m not talking about vineyards in the Yarra Valley or the Mornington Peninsula, but Melbourne itself. Some are close to the city, too.
There’s a vineyard on the banks of the Yarra in Kew, opposite IKEA, plus another just downriver in Hawthorn.
Geoff Pryor bought the land between his house and the Yarra River in Kew in 1994 and planted a 0.4 hectare (an acre) of cabernet sauvignon vines on land that had been a market garden for a century.
A consultant recommended shiraz, but at the time, says Pryor, “I was interested in Margaret River cabernet sauvignon”, so cabernet it was.
Some years the vines produce enough grapes for 3000 bottles. Current vintages of Studley Park Vineyard, made by the talented Llew Knight, of Knight Granite Hills in Lancefield, are cab sav from 2004 and 2007, and a 2012 rosé that’s textural, dry and easy to drink.
The vineyard is on the Yarra flood plain so the land isn’t zoned as residential or commercial by Stonnington council. “I can’t have a cellar door as it’s regarded as a shop, though the council does buy my wine for guest speakers [at council events],” Pryor says.
Studley Park vineyard is not immune to the problems faced by grape growers around Victoria, especially from birds. “Blackbirds are fond of the grapes, so we have to get the nets on early,” says Pryor.
Further out of town, at Kellybrook Estate on the edge of the Yarra Valley in Wonga Park, Melbourne expanded around the vineyard and cider orchard.
In the early 1980s my parents would make a day trip of a visit to Kellybrook to buy cider. These days, according to Google, it’s a 45-minute journey up the Eastern Freeway and EastLink from the city.
» Melbourne Wine Week starts on Friday with a tasting from 5.30pm at Collins Place, featuring 300 award-winning wines from the Royal Melbourne Wine Show. See melbournewineweek.com.au
