Mornington Peninsula Wine Food Farmgate Trail: Food from the farmgate

We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.

Advertisement

This was published 9 years ago

Mornington Peninsula Wine Food Farmgate Trail: Food from the farmgate

Sheriden Rhodes explores the gourmet blessed Mornington Peninsula region via the new Wine Food Farmgate Trail.

By Sheriden Rhodes
Lunch at Green Olive.

Lunch at Green Olive.Credit: Sheriden Rhodes

There's nothing I love better than packing up the car, winding the windows down and watching city life dissolve in the rear view mirror. I long for sojourns in the country: pure air, fresh produce stalls and ambles down country lanes. There can be nothing finer than lazy afternoons on a deck with a long neglected book, or nights gazing heavenward at the Milky Way - with nothing but a chorus of frogs to serenade you to sleep.

So it was with hopes of not only slowing down a notch or two, but experiencing terrific country produce and award winning wine to boot that I headed for the Mornington Peninsula's new Wine Food Farmgate (WFFG) trail. More than 75 like-minded country operators have banded together to form the 'choose your own adventure' experience. The trail directs city slickers down country lanes where they can taste the bounty of artisan producers, organic growers and orchardists and connect with hatted chefs and award winning wine makers – something the Mornington Peninsula is particularly blessed with. Getting around and finding these gems, located between Western Port Phillip Bay to the east and Bass Straight to the north, has been decidedly tricky, particularly with the region's dusty dirt roads and meandering lanes that criss-cross the hinterland. By putting everything onto the one map, it makes it easy for gourmands to plot out an itinerary.

I picked up the WFFG tail a little over an hour from Melbourne. As I drive in the gate at Hart's Farm, with its vistas of rolling vines and olive groves, Penny and Graeme Hart's two dogs, Dudley and Coco, race to greet me. In a former life, 10-hectare Hart's Farm was a dairy property, but has evolved into a boutique olive grove and soon-to-be cidery with purpose built B&B attached. Hart's Farm is my base for exploring the peninsula.

Young goats at Main Ridge Dairy. Their milk is turned into award winning cheeses.

Young goats at Main Ridge Dairy. Their milk is turned into award winning cheeses.Credit: Sheriden Rhodes

I start at the highest point of Main Ridge at 2 Mac's Farm where Mary McCarty and Bill McNamara (the two Macs) are putting the finishing touches to a new cooking school, Harvest Kitchen and self-contained accommodation in the original farmhouse, Harvest House. Mary introduces me to her brood of happy chickens: scratching, nesting and laying eggs in and around a mobile red gypsy caravan. "I can't keep up with the demand," Mary says of her renowned free range eggs which are sold at the farm gate, along with raw honey sourced from the farm's own beehives.

Over at Main Ridge Dairy I get a closer look at the workings of the farm and meet its 200 plus herd of free range goats. The affectionate young girls nuzzle up to me looking for a pat, one cheekily nibbling on my leather handbag strap. Main Ridge Dairy offers a true paddock to plate experience, with careful feed and herd management producing milk of the highest quality. It's then handcrafted into a range of award winning cheeses that I sample in the cafe, while watching the kids play in the paddock next door. The capriole and the caprino are my favourites and it's easy to see why their cheeses are so lauded.

Nearby at Green Olive diners can feast on handmade lamb sausages, seasonal produce, organic Wiltshire lamb and free range Isa brawn chicken at the heart of the 11-hectare sustainable farm. The gregarious Greg O'Donoghue meets me while wife Sue shows me around. The former apple orchard is now home to five varieties of olive trees, three clones of pinot and chardonnay as well as livestock. "What we produce is what we have on the menu," explains Sue. We tuck into lamb sausages, garden herbs, fennel seeds and capsicum relish and watch as their sprightly Italian gardener (believed to be aged in her late 70s), tends massive planter boxes full of vegetables and herbs that look straight out of the Promised Land.

Breakfast at Somers General Store.

Breakfast at Somers General Store.Credit: Sheriden Rhodes

Late in the afternoon, as the sun slowly sets over the pretty hinterland, Sheryn Mock, a fifth generation apple farmer, takes me through a tasting of the Mock Orchard cider range in their farm gate store and cider lounge. The biodynamic orchard still produces fruit, but branched into value added products like cider a decade ago. "Boutique cider is booming because it's low carbohydrate and the dry varieties are low in sugar," she tells me.

Advertisement

From Hart's Farm's central location at the heart of the fertile and picturesque hinterland, it's easy to sample other Wine Food Farmgate experiences: you can pick your own strawberries at Sunny Ridge Strawberry Farm, a third-generation family owned property, dine at the new Polperro Cellar Door and Bistro with its slick Hecker Guthrie fitout or at Terre, headed up by industry stalwarts Rowan and Janine Herrald from Dunkeld's Royal Mail Hotel. Alternatively take a drive to the sleepy seaside villages along Western Port Bay, peeping invitingly through rolling hills dotted with grazing cows. Coffee and brunch at the homey Somers General Store is a must. With four chef's hatted restaurants, more than 50 cellar doors showcasing the best of the cool maritime climate region, cafes, artisan producers and more, you're literally spoiled for choice.

Back at Hart's Farm I kick back on the deck with a classic Mock Orchard cider as Dudley and Coco vie for a scratch. Parked in the driveway my car boot groans with its bounty of local produce, wine, free-range eggs and cider. I've only been away a few days, but it feels much longer. Country life has a wonderful way of doing that to you.

Chickens scratching around a gypsy caravan make a picturesque sight at Mac's Farm.

Chickens scratching around a gypsy caravan make a picturesque sight at Mac's Farm.Credit: Sheriden Rhodes

The writer travelled as a guest of Wine Food Farmgate and Tourism Victoria.

TRIP NOTES

GETTING THERE

To plot your Wine Food Farmgate journey see winefoodfarmgate.com.au where you can download a map, pick up a trail kit at the Mornington Peninsula Visitor Information Centre or look out for the WFFG logo displayed at participating outlets. MP Experience meanwhile runs tailored WFFG tours in luxury transport. See mpexperience.com.au.

STAYING THERE

Stays at Hart's Farm start from $330 a night midweek including breakfast and a bottle of Hart's Farm Extra Virgin Olive Oil. See hartsfarm.com.au.

MORE INFORMATION

Sign up for the Traveller Deals newsletter

Get exclusive travel deals delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up now.

Most viewed on Traveller

Loading