Marketed as the cool climate wine growing region of Western Australia, Denmark boasts more than 25 vineyards and cellar doors. Mick and I spent the working our way around a handful of them. Some were closed, some were open only for private tastings, and five tastings in a day was about all we could handle.

The countryside was beautiful, and some of the roads were tiny and dusty, but the five wineries we selected gave us a good cross section of the local talent.

One of the attractions for this next winery was that they sold homemade gelato. Mick did the tasting at this one and I treated myself to a ginger and honey ice cream.

One theme did crop up during our tastings here – many of the wineries had a ‘side line’, like the gelato for instance. We visited another one that also sold cheese. The wine tasting experience was extremely ordinary, so much so that it was the first time on this trip where Mick paid the wine tasting fee and left empty handed. The young fellow who served us knew nothing about the wine and admitted that he didn’t drink the wine. So, nor did we.

We visited Monkey Rock (MR) wines and cider; the cider was their ‘side line’, having gone into making different ciders fairly recently. Mick enjoyed this winery as it made unusual wines e.g an orange wine. No preservatives or added yeast are used in making any of their wines. The young woman taking Mick through the tasting was charming and knowledgeable and so he left with a bottle of their shiraz and a can of highly alcoholic cider.

Mick also made friends with the MR ducks.

We may even share some of those at Christmas.