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Best Pub Restaurant List: Healesville Hotel, Healesville

This is the sort of place, with its four open fireplaces, high ceilings and Old World charm, where a glass of sherry before dinner seems ideal. And you’ve come to the right place, because sherry is one of owner/sommelier Michael Kennedy’s passions.

Over the past six years Kennedy has turned the century-old hotel into a regional food and wine destination, with a wine list that not surprisingly features a strong line-up of Yarra Valley wines to complement the local produce. Should you have the local Wantirna cabernet merlot to go with the Murrumbong lamb shanks and merguez sausage, or will you break ranks and choose the Cullen?

The wine list is revised at least once a week, with an extensive and constantly changing list of wines by the glass to encourage exploration. Kennedy’s other passions, for riesling and rosé, also shine, with the list covering a lot of ground, including rieslings from Alsace and Germany as well as key Australian regions. There is also a list of “interesting reds” that are, well, interesting. Here you might find anything from a Poliziano Chianti to a Pago La Jara tempranillo.

The reason for this is clear: the Yarra Valley winemakers who patronise the hotel don’t want to drink just the local wines, they want to taste the world, which means you can too. But the Healesville Hotel remains a good place in which to explore the region’s chardonnay and pinot noir. Food and wine matching suggestions are limited to the dessert menu, where you’ll find the Serrat Late Harvest Viognier a more than acceptable partner for the roast quince with cinnamon and walnut baklava.   

Healesville Hotel, 256 Maroondah Hwy, Healesville, Vic, (03) 5962 4002, www.healesvillehotel.com.au.

TEXT NIGEL HOPKINS

This article appeared in the August/September 2008 issue of Gourmet Traveller WINE.