Phillip Island Winery — Attraction in Ventnor

This is a nice winery on Phillip Island. The signposting was good although the signposting stops when you get to the driveway to the winery.

FYI there are 4 sections to this winery. The cellar door, the restaurant and the indoor casual area in a large enclosed tent and the outdoor lawn area.

I tried a chardy for the first time in ages and it was a winner, full of fruit, not too sweet with some oak, but not overpowering. My partner had a Pinot Noir which was ok but it lacked depth.

Buying a take away at the cellar door was challenging. The man who served me told me that the bottle I had from the fridge was for drinking on site, and promptly told me that the take away wine was on the shelf behind me. Which he pointed out to me.

The he turned to another customer to serve them without asking me if I wanted to buy a take away wine from the shelf. What??

I barely had time to answer, but I did stop him as he served the woman beside me and say ok, then give me a bottle from the shelf behind you. I should have walked away.

This man was so unnecessarily dismissive and rude.

The fridge did not have any signage and given that I asked to buy my bottle as a take away, not to drink it there, I don't understand why he was so rude.

And why he would serve someone else in front of me and just ignore me. 28/4/22 I've put the date so the owners know who was working that afternoon in the cellar door section.

That experience tainted an otherwise...

We had a bizarre experience on Sunday (19/2/23). My partner ordered a pineapple IPA; when his beer arrived he tasted it and said to the waitress "is this the pineapple IPA?", she said "no, we don't have that anymore" and walked away. He paid a premium for a drink they no longer had and didn't know what the substitute was. We spoke to another waitress and she was really nice. She offered a refund and a free drink.

After that I walked over to an open grass area next to the vineyard. Another staff member walked over and said "Excuse me. We are a working farm. You can't be here" I looked around at the open space and said "sorry I didn't realise". He replied: "the signs are pretty obvious". I asked where the signs were and he said "over in the corner. People just think they can do whatever they like here. We are a working farm" (he was oddly proud of that). Sure enough there was a sign facing the other way that I couldn't have read between the dining area and the open grass area (wasn't fenced off, no obvious signage). I said "okay, that's fair, I didn't see the sign, maybe calm down with the attitude." Then he cracked it and walked away (if this is happening a lot maybe put another sign up so it's clear to people where the off limits area is?).

If you come here just be prepared for the Karen's Diner experience...

We decided to drop by to fill some time up in Phillip Island, not really knowing what to expect. The venue for lunch is quite quaint and stylish, with a nice ambience. The staff were very attentive and pleasant, however we felt our waitress was a little too pushy or in some sort of rush when it came to asking us three times after being seated if we wanted a drink. We hadn’t had time to even look at the menu before the first approach. We had a shared platter, salad and arancini balls. The salad wasn’t really a ‘salad’ but rather a few slices of tomato and mozzarella neatly stacked with some basil thrown on top - it was however delicious (just not what we were expecting) and we were slightly disappointed with the platter as there was very little amount of cheese provided and the meat wasn’t too interesting. I was also super confused by the drinks menu as it seemed to be other people’s wines? I wasn’t sure what theirs was. It was probably there, but again I felt rushed needing to order something.

We decided not to bother with the cellar door and continue on with our day. Also approach the turn off slowly if you have never been before as the signage is barely visible...