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Page Last Updated:
Thursday, 6 September 2012 |
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Home>Visitors>Food and wine
Victoria’s Great Alpine Valleys changes dramatically with every season.
Read on and you’ll discover why there’s every reason to visit.
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| The Alpine Valleys have produced grapes since the late 1800s and have now become an impressive feature on Victoria's food and wine landscape.
Our valleys produce delightful food and wine and have become recognised through numerous awards and accolades.
Victoria's Great Alpine Valleys offers a wide range of produce that's locally grown and prepared by talented chefs who enthusiastically support our regional growers.
Seasonal menus at our restaurants and cafes really are seasonal.
In autumn you might find fragrant chestnut soup, in winter a variety of mushrooms, in spring the first of the new season's asparagus, while in summer our market gardens deliver just-picked fruit including raspberries, loganberries, red and black currants, cherries and boysenberries.
Wineries
This is a true cool climate region and our wines have been honoured with awards and rave reviews.
Chardonnay and pinot noir grapes produce wines with great depth of flavour from a long growing season and you'll also find impressive pinot gris, riesling, sauvignon blanc, cabernet sauvignon, shiraz and merlot, along with Italian varieties, such as pinot grigio, marzemino and fragolino introduced by Italian settlers in the region.
A dozen wineries are dotted through our valleys and towns, including Myrtleford, Porepunkah, Tawonga, Tawonga South, Eurobin, Gapsted, Rosewhite, Kancoona South and Mongans Bridge in the Kiewa Valley.
Many invite you to enjoy their wines with local cheese and antipasto platters, traditional Tuscan food or a menu created around seasonal local produce.
Chefs and growers
Victoria's Great Alpine Valleys is gaining a fine reputation for its cafes and restaurants and you'll find a wide range of options such as Italian and French, to name a few.
For those who enjoy fine dining at its best, our region boasts a wide range of quality restaurants and cafes, including chef hat (The Age, Melbourne) awarded restaurant Villa Gusto, in Bright, which also epitomises making the most of fresh local produce, winning the 2012 Age Good Food Guide "Sustainability Award" for its site-grown herbs, nuts, fruit and vegetables and eggs.
There are numerous other options for diners; from gourmet 'pub grub' to restaurants serving an array of dishes including Indian, Sri Lankan or modern Australian, or have a fun, family barbecue by the river.
And it won't take you long to find a tempting breakfast or lunch destination in one of our cafes.
If you'd like to sample some local produce - venison, trout, beef, olives and preserves are available year round.
Seasonal produce includes apples (autumn-spring), asparagus (spring-summer), chestnuts, hazelnuts, walnuts and persimmons (autumn), tomatoes (summer) and many berries including lesser-known varieties such as lawtonberries, kerriberries, taiberries, josterberries and marionberries (summer-autumn).
Look out for the 'Open' signs at the growers' gates, or drop into our specialty food stores.
When food and wine producers get together, fantastic festivals and events are inevitable.
Come and join in - they're the best way to sample our fine regional produce in a very relaxed country atmosphere.
Some of our gourmet food and wine events include Alpine Valleys Gourmet Weekend, La Fiera Festival (May) and the Wandiligong Nut Festival (May).
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