Cider Wine Mehhhhh same same??
Despite looking similar in the glass these are two VERY different alcoholic drinks, nevertheless we took a different angle this week and headed off to the Napoleone Brewery + Ciderhouse.
WINE EXPERIENCE
Cellar door: As opposed to your traditional cellar door tasting experience the cider house offers a tasting board. $12 for 4 beers or ciders of your choice. Quite a decent purchase as the portion sizes were more then just a mouth full, so you were really able to get a good tasting of each of your choices. I had 2 ciders and 2 beers and despite not being a beer nor cider drinker I really enjoyed the drinks. The outside courtyard was absolutely pumping with people of all ages enjoying the great vibe and drinks, really adding a different element that we haven’t experienced at other wineries.
Winery: The scenery here is absolutely amazing. The grounds, the architecture, the layout, everything about this place screams modern industrial and I absolutely loved it.
Be sure to explore the gift shop at the front of the cider house and the grounds out the front of the restaurant – there are some sensational views of the Yarra Valley. There is also the option to stay with some quaint accomodation located on site. Cant comment on the accomodation as we didn’t experience it for ourselves but looked devine.
This scenery has been by far the most outstanding of all the wineries we have visited and you can understand why this venue attracts so many visitors on a daily basis.
FOOD EXPERIENCE
Restaurant: The Italian restaurant ‘Meletos’ was fantastic. Unfortunately due to the amazing weather and the busy day that it was, we had to wait just over an hour for a table. It was worth it. We shared two pizza a salad and despite being at a cider house we had a glass of local pinot noir. The pizzas were wood fired and a really decent serving. We shared the spicy octopus and mushroom pizzas and highly recommend them both!!!! The salad was a beetroot and walnut which was mouth watering but ridiculously over priced at $18 for a few small portions of roasted beetroot.
LOCATION:
St Herbert’s Road, Coldstream. When coming from Melbourne along the Maroondah highway it is on your left hand side just beyond Helen and Joeys.
BLOKES COMMENT:
Finally a pizza that was worth every cent. Good portion size for one person and enough topping to enjoy the flavour. The salad we ordered, on the other hand was very over priced, luckily it wasn’t my meal to worry about.
The cider/beer tasting was reasonable in price with a good selection. I’m not much of a cider drinker but the beers on offer were ok.
SCORE:
WINE EXPERIENCE
Claire – 3/5
Ash – 3/5
FOOD EXPERIENCE
Claire – 4/5
Ash – 4/5
OVERALL SCORE: 3.5/5
thewinestar 
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