ON THE HIGH ROAD

Victoria's High Country always seemed a sleepy stop on the way to somewhere else, writes Michael Harden, but there’s change in the air with a new generation of entrepreneurs reinvigorating the region.

Victoria’s High Country always seemed a sleepy stop on the way to somewhere else, but a new generation of entrepreneurs is reinvigorating the region.

VVictoria’sHigh Country was long regarded as a scenic stretch of the drive from Melbourne to the snowfields – a sleepy region of farms and fortified wine. Then along came a new generation of farmers, winemakers and thinkers. A decade later, their energy and confidence has turned the region into a destination buoyed by new businesses, new wine varieties, new produce and new ideas. Bright attracts as many people for its coffee, chocolate, beer and gin as it does for its showy autumn leaves. Rutherglen winemakers are challenging the notion that fortified wine is the region’s only strength. Yackandandah’s energy is on track to be 100 per cent renewable by 2022. And destination diners flock to one of Australia’s best restaurants in Beechworth.

At the vast Brown Brothers winery in Milawa, Katherine Brown is barrel-tasting wines she’s been developing in the company’s “kindergarten winery”.

It’s a purpose-built facility surrounded by giant tanks, positioned away from the manicured gardens around the cellar door and restaurant. This is where Brown Brothers winemakers go to experiment with new things. As the first Brown woman to make wine at the 128-year-old winery, Katherine is something of a new thing herself, part of a generation that's shaking things up across Victoria’s north-east.

“Our climate in the King Valley is a huge strength,” she says. “We can grow anything we want because of all the separate microclimates. And because the area still feels a bit like a hidden secret, we’re not stuck in a mould. People come here to try something new. We can make and grow what we like and so the reputation we’re getting as a region is as a place where we do things differently. We’re all about surprise and delight and getting people excited about the good things in life.”

Along quiet, narrow roads framed by mountains, Italian families such as Pizzini and Dal Zotto have well-established vineyards of prosecco, nebbiolo, arneis and sangiovese where once they grew tobacco. Some wineries have restaurants or cooking schools featuring produce from the region: Angus beef, free-range pork, cheese, chestnuts, olives, butter, cherries, apples and honey.

The diversity of produce comes from the High Country’s distinct seasons and consistent climate: frosty winters, clear, crisp autumns, and hot summers with evenings cooled by alpine winds. It’s perfect for growing hops, farmed here for local and export markets. The region is so enthusiastic about craft beer that a High Country town without a microbrewery is almost an exception to the rule.

There’s even a brewery in the wine town of Rutherglen, and generational change is under way at its wineries. Rutherglen is thick with venerable winemaking families renowned for their fortified wines – Morris, Chambers, Campbells, Stanton & Killeen – while other winemakers are pushing the envelope,

Jen Pfeiffer at Pfeiffer Wines, Mandy Jones at Jones Winery, and Rowly Milhinch at Scion among them.

“There’s a change happening in Rutherglen winemaking where people are looking at the region’s traditional strengths and then saying, let’s move them over here and see if there’s another way of doing things,” says Milhinch. “There’s a respect for tradition but also a realisation that Rutherglen is just as capable of producing award-winning white wines like arneis.”

This kind of energy and optimism seems endemic across the north-east of the state. Shuttered pubs are reopening, people who grew up here are quitting city jobs and returning with expectations and experience of good coffee and sourdough, of distinctive beers and gins and wines that tell local stories. And still the High Country retains a sense of peace, of being just a little off the beaten track. Here are the places that should be on your radar.