Yarra Valley Gin & Chocolate

The Yarra Valley Chocolaterie is the most-visited venue in the region — seventeen of the thirty-nine tours here stop there, which is more than any winery. Gin is a different story. Plenty of listings put the word in the title; only three actually take you to the Four Pillars distillery in Healesville, and on most of the rest the gin is a paid upgrade you buy at a cellar door.

That distinction is worth about $25 and a good deal of disappointment.

Where the gin actually is

On the valley’s most-reviewed tour, the gin and whisky tasting happens at St Huberts and the listing is explicit that it costs extra. On the $71 tour, the gin is at Rochford Wines and priced at $25 a head on top of the ticket. On the $129 tour, you may swap the fourth winery for a Four Pillars flight — an either-or, not an addition.

Only the $93 Wine, Gin, Beer, Cider and Chocolate tour includes a proper gin paddle: four gins with mixer, at the distillery, inside the price. It is also the only tour here that gives chocolate a private room rather than a shop counter — twenty-five minutes, ten to twelve chocolates, a dedicated space.

The trade is cellar doors. That tour visits two wineries, Yering Farm and Tokar Estate, against three or four on the wine-focused days. You are buying a distillery and a chocolate room with the time a third winery would have taken.

The chocolate is nearly always included

Unlike gin, the Chocolaterie stop is generally inside the ticket. The flagship includes a guided tasting of ten chocolates; the $71 tour includes a guided chocolate tasting plus a strawberry farm; the $86 tour includes chocolate and cheese and fruit.

The Chocolaterie itself is free to enter and sells at a counter, so a “visit” and a “guided tasting” are not the same thing. Where the listing says guided or private, someone is walking you through it. Where it just names the venue, you are being given shopping time.

If you want gin without giving up wine

Two routes.

Book the $129 tour and take the Four Pillars option instead of the fourth winery: you still get three cellar doors, a two-course lunch with a glass of wine, and a gin flight. Adults only, $129, 353 reviews at 4.9.

Or book a wine-focused day and pay the upgrade. The flagship at $93 plus a gin tasting at St Huberts lands close to the same money and keeps three cellar doors plus the Chocolaterie. Which is better depends on whether you would rather taste gin at a distillery or at a winery’s bar.

Beer, cider and whisky, briefly

The same catalogue has a tour swapping the fourth winery for Watts River Brewery, available Thursday to Monday only. The $93 gin tour includes cider alongside beer and gin. Whisky appears on the flagship as part of the same paid upgrade as the gin.

None of these is a large part of the day. If beer or cider is the actual reason you are going, read the itinerary closely rather than the title — one of these tours has four non-wine words in its name and still spends most of the day at two wineries.

Is it still a wine tour?

Honestly, at two cellar doors, it is a tasting day with wine in it. That is not a complaint — it holds 4.9 from 784 reviews, the second-largest body of feedback in the region, and people plainly love it.

But if someone in your group came for the Chardonnay, look at Yarra Valley winery tours and tastings first and make the choice deliberately.

Check availability — free cancellation runs to 24 hours before departure.