On the wine trail in Orange - Lolli Redini

Making the most of a recent well deserved holiday my wife and I headed embarked on a tour of some of New South Wales wine regions. Having already covered the Hunter, Southern Highlands and Canberra region this time we decided to tour Orange and Mudgee, which are a couple of places a bit more off the beaten track.

Enjoying the view across
 Lake Canobolas

Orange itself is a beautiful location, in the shadow (well,  as much as a mountain of 1400m can cast a shadow) of Mount Canobolas there are a number of cooler climate vineyards which can grow a wide variety of grapes due to the variance in height, as there are vineyards in the surrounding area sitting between 600 and 1200 m in altitude, Orange are very proud of the fact that to be a wine of Orange the grapes have to be from vineyards which are between these heights, nothing from below 600m is allowed to have Orange on the label.

View from the top of
Mount Canobolas

While we were there we booked into a wine tour with Chase, an American (don’t hold it against him) who is now doing minibus tours for small (intimate) groups in the area, I have to admit this was probably one of the better commercial tours I have been on as the low numbers of people (although he can take 11 people he prefers to operate for smaller groups of 6 or 8) get a very personal experience on the cellar door which is a million miles away from the 45 person bus load things that you get in the hunter. As a shameless plug for his new business you can find out more about him here http://www.orangewinestours.com.au, I would definitely recommend it as the best way to get around and still enjoy a drink as cycling around the many hills on narrow roads in Orange seems like a recipe for disaster to me.

As well as some excellent wine (we finished the wine tour slightly merry and with a case of 12 bottles from various vineyards in the back of the bus) there is also a lot of good eating in Orange with a number of their restaurant making the good food guide. On our first night we dropped in to Lolli Redini(http://www.lolliredini.com.au/), which if you mention it to any of the locals will immediately illicit a response of "it’s great, you have to have the soufflé".

The Cheese Souffle

This led to me conquering one of my main fears when it comes to ordering dinner, which is ordering the same thing as someone at my table. This fear grows the fewer people I am dining with, so I pretty much never order the same thing as my wife, however I was glad that, aided by the wonderous nerve calming effects of a glass of local wine, I was able to mutter the words "I’ll have the soufflé too, please".

This turned out to be the best decision I had made in quite some time, the Twice Cooked Gruyere Soufflé was probably one of the most enjoyable things I have eaten since coming to Sydney, it was everything a soufflé should be, light, beautifully textured and incredibly tasty, surrounded by a cheese sauce and topped with spring onions to break through the creaminess. I have to admit that from the picture I took it is no looker, however in real life I thought it was quite attractive. Lolli’s do an interesting pairing of wines with their food, all of which is from the local vineyards and with the soufflé they had put a sparkling wine (interestingly the waitress warned me it was sparkling as if this would somehow put me off ordering it!?! My wife was given no such caution, perhaps the men in country towns think it is not manly to be seen with a glass of bubbles! I think reading that back it may not be manly to call it a glass of bubbles, but I think that drinking it is perfectly masculine..)

Hereford Brisket

After the soufflé (how many times can I mention it) the rest of the meal rather pales by comparison, which is unfortunate as my main of beef brisket was very good, and I am a great believer in their general policy of showing off the best of the regions produce, both with the meat and also the matching wine which they suggest. The food was excellently cooked (My wifes Pork Belly apparently had excellent crackling) and also well presented, they also do a very fine truffle mash which we had as a side, although it could be considered to be slightly unnecessary as the portion sizes were, what could only be described as generous.

Pork Belly

Price wise it is not exactly cheap (certainly for the area) with two courses coming in at 68 dollars, but compared to Sydney I would class it as excellent value (although compared to Sydney I think most places are excellent value but I digress).

We chose to finish with the cheese platter as our dessert and were helpfully informed by the waitress that this was also massive and that a platter each was completely unnecessary, this was great advice as we struggle to finish even one of them between us.