Taste of the high country

It sounds like a bad B-movie script. Take a detour off the dreary Hume Highway in search of a room for the night and end up in an asylum steeped in tales of torment and woe.

The Mayday Hills Lunatic Asylum, now part of the La Trobe University campus at Beechworth, offers accommodation for those bold enough to enter what was once a harsh mental institution. It has a gruesome past, best discovered on the nightly ghost tours run by Adam Wynne-Jenkins. About 27 of his family members worked at Mayday Hills during a 128-year period, so Wynne-Jenkins has quite a history of madness and a finely honed sense of the macabre.

His tour visits the ladies' committal room, with its single window offering a last glimpse of freedom, and the female laundries upstairs where there's a common sighting of a nurse in a white uniform, presumed to be the kindly Matron Sharp, who introduced pets and flowers in an effort to humanise the hospital. In the infirmary, where many patients expired - their bodies carried out on a pushcart known as the meat wagon - Wynne-Jenkins warns supernatural forces might make us feel nauseous.

''An average of five people a month faint during this part of the tour,'' he says. We survive the ordeal without a single swoon or ghost sighting, so sleep comes easily in McCarthy House, the old medical superintendent's cottage overlooking Madmans Gully. The Edwardian building's interiors have been thoroughly modernised - flat-screen TVs, en suites, spa bath - while retaining homely touches such as the Hills Hoist and backyard barbecue.

Unique accommodation and ghost stories aside, Beechworth and the north-east are one of rural Victoria's gourmet strongholds, flanked by the stellar Alpine Valley, King Valley and Beechworth wine regions.

The most compelling reason to venture off the highway and explore the area is the promise of a great feed around every corner. The star turn is dinner at the two-hatted Provenance, where gifted chef Michael Ryan features mainly local produce in his six-course degustation menu ($85 a head, $135 with matched wines). Standouts include the surprising starter, ''anchovy with its fried bone'', Nug Nug (that's a place) goat balls with chickpeas and egg and lemon sauce, and Rutherglen lamb served ''primal, with a brik of its other bits''. There are ample other rewards in store for foraging food lovers. The neighbouring Milawa gourmet area, an easy drive to the south-west, is the home of the Milawa Mustards shop (housed in the old courthouse where Ned Kelly once appeared before His 'onour) and the Milawa Cheese Company factory. After a full lunch in its tin-roofed restaurant - the goat's cheese tart with handmade puff pastry is faultless - visitors can fill the boot with cheeses and goods from the on-site bakery and chocolate shop.

On the same stretch of bitumen is Brown Brothers, the Victorian vineyard that has slaked thirsts since the 19th century. The list of wines produced by this single property - about 45 all told - is one of the most extensive of any winery and includes uncommon drops such as cienna, a CSIRO-developed blend of Spanish sumoll and cabernet sauvignon grapes, and the Sicilian varietal nero d'avola.

In contrast to the history-heavy Brown Brothers, the nearby Sam Miranda vineyard is a modernist temple to grapes and pizza. Head underground into the sleek bunker for shoulder-to-shoulder wine tasting - the prosecco is pleasant - and try to resist one of the thin-crust pizzas. These are just two of the 15 wineries in the King Valley, a critical mass that makes wine touring a pleasurable day trip. And there's plenty else to taste besides. At Mount Beauty, Kent and Sevasti Scott treat guests at their Birches Spa Chalets with silver-service dining that might begin with some Brillat Savarin cheese and a glass of Pouilly Fume in the garden, progressing to beef or duck served with a fricassee of some of nine edible fungi grown on site. Superb wines are a hallmark of the property - Kent volunteers that he has 2500 bottles of ''notable and rare wines'' in his collection, including a Clos de la Roche for $US40,000 ($40,230) if anyone's interested.

In the town proper, a once-derelict chalet has been given a sleek Scandinavian overhaul and name, Svarmisk, and offers luxe accommodation at the base of Falls Creek, plus a deli selling Swedish treats such as lingonberry juice and chocolates.