Old Kent River Winery and Slow Food Cafe

The Old Kent River winery is located midway between Denmark and Walpole on the South Coast Hwy and is also home to the Slow Food Cafe.

The first thing you’ll notice when you pull up in the car park is the large sculpture of a marron sitting there looking back at you. After this, as you head for the front door, you come across a large tank containing a few large examples of live Marron. Once inside, you start to realize that the sculpture and tank actually fit in well with the theme of the Slow Food Cafe as their menu comprises of only two options for a main course, Marron or Lamb.

On entering the restaurant, you first pass the wine tasting counter. Here they offer a range of Shiraz and Pinot Noir red wines as well as Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay in the whites. These were all reasonably good wines that are probably somewhere in the middle of the price spectrum ranging between $18 and $26 per bottle.

The two exceptions to this are the Burls at $50 and the Diamondtina Sparkling at $30 per bottle. To my mind the Burls, which is a reserve Pinot Noir is probably not worth the extra price. I’d stick to their regular Pinot at half the price. The Diamondtina however was very nice. So nice in fact that we started out with a glass to go with our lunch and ended up buying the bottle. For a detailed description of the wines on offer you can follow the link to their website that can be found at the bottom of this page.

Anyway, after we had finished tasting the wine, we moved into the restaurant to have lunch. The restaurant has a nice feel to it with the walls being lined with wine and other bits and pieces that they had for sale. The highlight though is in the back corner of the room where they have a holding tank that contains the live marron. Another nice feature is the tables. They are made out of solid slabs of wood cut from the burl of a Jarrah tree, very nice.

On to the food, both my wife and I had the Marron, seeing how the whole place seemed to revolve around it we thought it only right and to be honest, even if there was more of a choice I’d still have chosen it anyway. In the end it was a good choice as the Marron was cooked nicely with the flesh beautifully tender and sweet. The dish was server with a side salad and dipping sauce and was very nicely matched by the Diamondtina sparkling wine that we chose to have with it.

To follow we had a fresh apple pie. The apple was beautifully spiced and the crust was cooked perfectly. It was matched with vanilla ice cream and finished off the meal well.

All in all, this is probably one of the better wineries that we visited in the region. The food was also beautifully done and the staff were very friendly. I’d say it is definitely worth a visit.

Address: Old Kent River, Rocky Gully, WA 6397
Telephone: (08) 9840 8136
Web: http://www.oldkentriverwines.com.au

Latest Update

During our last visit, we happened to revisit the Old Kent River Winery. As a special treat, on this occasion we decided to buy some live Marron, a native fresh water crayfish that when cooked properly is beautifully tender and has a sublimely delicate flavour. Below, you can find the recipe showing what we did with them.