A Margaret River Long Weekend
For the four-day November visit when the Cape vines are in bud.
Margaret River is the wine region most Australians have heard about, visited least, and kept the most respect for. The drive from Perth is three hours; the flight option (Busselton airport) is forty minutes. The region is small enough to do properly in four days and large enough to ruin in three.
The trip below is Cape Lodge as the base, three of the founding-tier wineries (Vasse Felix, Leeuwin Estate, and Cullen, the third pillar outside our current Cabinet), the Margaret River Co-op cheese stop, and a final morning at the surf beaches between Smiths and Yallingup. Spring (October to November) is the right window: the vines are in bud, the lambs are on the menu, and the rain has lifted.
The picks
Stay (3 nights)
Cape Lodge
Twenty-two rooms on a private vineyard at Yallingup. The Lodge Suite is the upgrade; for a couple, a Garden View Room is enough. The on-site restaurant in Australia's top one percent of Good Food Guide chef hat ratings means the first dinner is on-property by default.
Cellar door, day one
Vasse Felix
The 1967 founding winery, Holmes a Court family-owned. Lunch in the restaurant; the Heytesbury Cabernet vertical at the cellar door after. Janet Holmes a Court's contemporary art collection in the building is the second exhibit.
Cellar door, day two
Leeuwin Estate
The other founding-tier producer, established 1973. The Art Series Chardonnay is the wine; the Concert Series amphitheatre is the architecture worth the visit even off-concert dates. Lunch on the terrace.
Re-entry dinner in Sydney
Margaret
On the way home, if a Saturday-night Sydney layover is the schedule, Margaret in Double Bay is the right close to the trip. Steak after a wine weekend is the right pivot.
The flight back from Busselton via Perth is the better arrangement than the long Perth drive. Allow a Sunday afternoon for the Yallingup beach walk between Smiths Beach and Three Bears, then airport. Cape Lodge can arrange the transfer.
The November Concert Series at Leeuwin Estate is the moment to add one more night, but tickets sell out in May. Plan the trip around the concert if the act is right; otherwise the regular weekend is just as full.