Red Hill Estate

Another big venue with lovely introductory gardens and what looked like a lovely restaurant which looked over the vines to Western Port beyond. A truly wonderful view. The cellar door is a large, modernised shed with a wall of produce for sale as well as other walls of Art. I thought it was a little higgledy-piggledy, bits of this and bits of that, but what do I know? Wine serving was pleasant and so was the wine. Chardonnays - good, Pinot Noirs - very good. There was an entry level version of each, then a cellar door only version, then the upper versions. I liked the drink now stuff. There was an abundance of Pinot Noirs on offer in boxes at the centre of the shed from different years, different levels and in various combinations. The one on tasting was okay but I wanted to try more. To do so I would've had to spend almost $200 buying a mixed sixpack which was a little frustrating. I'll have to keep an eye on this place and hopefully they do tasting days so I can really get to know and compare their Pinot Noirs, without having to actually buy them all!

Crittenden Estate

I could tell as I was driving up that this was a serious venue with a large carpark. So as usual with these sort of places I was already wondering whether the wines stacked up, how much focus was left on the wines and cellar door and how it would rate as a venue. You have to walk a bit from the car park to the cellar door and although there are vines to look at, it's always nicer if you are forced to walk through pretty gardens, along a cared-for path rather than across a slab of concrete. I know, I'm picky. Anyway, I opened the glass door to the large cellar door and peeked into the restaurant area on my way to the restroom. Looked nice, weeping willow views, nice lawns, that sort of thing. Back to the cellar door I noticed lots of produce on offer and had time to investigate a little and wonder if all these wines with different labels were part of this place's repertoire. And indeed they were. The tasting list had no less than five sections under different labels, all with whites and reds. I was confused. I asked the lady how tastings are done here and she said to pick the ones I liked. I wanted to point out that I don't yet know which ones I like! Since there was no order to them I found this disconcerting and I'm sure the average punter would to. I prefer to be led through the process by the all-knowledgeable counter hand. I didn't want to do any work. I had it explained, as I showed my discomfort, that there's a grown-in-Mornington label (Crittenden Estate), a Spanish grape label (Los Hermanos), an experimental label (Pinocchio), a drink now label (Geppetto) and another label that is from Europe. Well I pointed to this and that and tasted some wine. I probably tried half of what was on offer and this was probably just as well. My favourites were the Tempranillo and the Homenaje a Cataluna (both from the Los Hermanos label). There were others that were good as well but to be honest the whole experience was so confusing that I just left it at these two.