Coldstream

We know what you’re thinking: Coldstream is just a fancy pit stop between a wine tasting and a helicopter selfie. And yeah, you’re not wrong. We’ve got more award-winning pinot than parking spots, and the closest you’ll get to a servo is the Picnic Pantry at Punt Road Wines, where you can buy cheese that costs more than your rent.

Our morning routine? Roll out of bed, dodge the wedding parties on Maroondah Highway, and head to 400 Gradi — not for the world champion pizza (though Johnny Di Francesco’s Margherita is still the best $30 you’ll spend on a charred dough circle), but to watch first-timers try to pronounce “fior di latte” with a straight face. Then it’s a quick wander up to Pimpernel Wines, where the family still picks grapes by hand and labels bottles in their living room. As Broadsheet put it, “the small tasting room has one counter with just a few bottles.” That’s it. No helipad. Just the Horrigans and their underground cellar.

Petty local drama? We don’t have feuds — we have Fender Katsalidis-designed architecture. Levantine Hill’s black steel and apricot wood building is basically a spaceship that landed on a vineyard, and it’s got room for 12 helicopters. The locals who still drive a Prado 250 to the CherryHill Christmas market roll their eyes every time a chopper drowns out the apple picking. But we’ll take it, because it means the tourists stay at the wineries and leave our Coldstream Orchard cider bar to us.

Who would hate it here? Anyone who thinks a “wine flight” should include a bag of chips. If you’re not prepared to spend $340 on Beluga caviar (yes, that’s on the Levantine Hill menu), you better be happy with a cannoli from 400 Gradi and a view of the hills. Also, if you don’t like sharing the road with a Range Rover doing 40km/h while the driver sips a Chandon Garden Spritz, don’t move in.

But who would love it? The person who understands that Coldstream is not just for wine snobs. It’s for the family that picks their own apples at Napoleone, the couple that books the Garden Spritz picnic at Chandon, and the weirdo who genuinely enjoys a barrel tasting at Oakridge. We’re a tiny town on a highway that somehow hosts a Day on the Green, Hot Dub Wine Machine, and a $20-million hotel at Levantine Hill. And we still have a brewery called Coldstream Brewery that sells a paddle of craft beer without the pretence.

Yes, we know they call us a “weekend getaway” for people who live in Fitzroy. They’re not wrong. But they missed the bit where we’re the ones laughing all the way to the cellar door.