Southern Hemisphere

In the northeast corner of Victoria lies Rutherglen, a region known for dessert wines made from Brown Muscat, Muscadelle, called Tokay here. The grapes for these wines are dried on the vine, pressed, fermented and fortified. The wines are barrel-aged and sometimes kept outdoors in order to give a Madiera-like effect.

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Central Victoria is known as the Goulburn Valley. West of the Goulburn is Heathcote, a cooler region located in the larger Bendigo. Continuing to the west, one encounters the Pyrenees.

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The area around Melbourne provides some interesting wines. The Macedon ranges and Sunbury are northwest of the city, and the Yarra Valley (Yarra Yering, Mount Mary) stretches to the northeast along the Yarra River. The Mornington Peninsula, Geelong, across the Port Phillip Bay, and Tasmania all provide good cool-climate growing regions. The soils throughout these regions are varied, but dominated by relatively rich sandy loams.

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