OK, it was really yesterday, the 4th December, but Mick said as we are in Western Australia, and due to the time delay, it was okay for us to celebrate it today. Plus, for most of our day, it was still the 4th December in the Loire Valley – the home of cabernet franc.

But who’d have thought there was such as thing as a day to Cabernet Franc? And, in a happy coincidence, our son had selected a number of bottles of cabernet franc for us to try this evening.

But first, we had other research to do.

Our first stop after a coffee in Witchcliffe was at the cellar door of McHenry Hohnen:

We had visited this place in November last year and had been very impressed. While I did not taste any wines on this trip, I was able to get good advice from the other three and we left after signing up as members. We also bought a bottle of their top of the range 2016 Rolling Stone – a prize-winning Bordeaux blend, to share with our Busselton hosts before we head home in a few days. The cellar door manager we had during our visit was the same woman we had last year – Clarice – and she was excellent; amongst the best at her job that we have come across. While talking with her, our son had a question she needed to clarify, and she called over to Murray to help answer it. Edward knew this was Murray McHenry, the owner of the winery, and he was able to clarify the answer for us and stayed to chat with us for awhile.

The next stop was to a much smaller enterprise – Firetail – a favourite with our son and Lucy. We have bought wine from here before (online) on their recommendations. And in fact, there is a box of Firetail wine awaiting collection at Cooroy Post Office when we return home next week, just in time for Christmas.

Jessica guided us through the tasting today. Firetail does not have a wine club, but as Mick and I are on their mailing list we will be informed of future opportunities to purchase wines, and of course I can just email an order through at any time. But for the time being, we actually have enough wine to keep us going possibly until the Christmas after next!!

When we left here it was well past my lunch time and I was getting hungry. The road we were on heading back to Busselton was pretty isolated, but luckily we stumbled across a roadside store at Rosa Brook – Darnells General Store. It was more like a museum really – stocking almost everything and anything. But most importantly, it sold sandwiches and hamburgers.

We arrived home around 3pm, all needing a little rest, before we commenced the next wine tasting activity before dinner. And this time, I was able to sample the wines. Mick and I think this was possibly our first taste of this straight varietal, and while I enjoyed them, Mick decided he was not a huge fan.

Mick made his now-famous kangaroo fillet and spicy sauce with cous-cous for dinner. It was delicious, paired with the top two picks from the tasting.

Wines we tried this evening were all from the Margaret River:

Montague: 2021 Cabernet Franc, 14.8% @ $45

Marq: 2021 Cabernet Franc, 14.3%, @ $25

Domaine Naturaliste: 2019 Cabernet Franc, 14.0% @ $89

Thompson Estate: 2020 Cabernet Franc, 14.0%, @ $35

And the winner was the Domaine Naturaliste, and of course that was the most expensive! But we agreed that the Marq came in second place, and it was the cheapest.

Tomorrow we will slow the wine tasting pace and only visit one winery – Lenton Brae. We will also take a trip to Bunbury Markets to gather the ingredients for dinner.