It’s doubtful a dose of the flu would figure in too many business plans, but for Clay Watson, the flu helped launch his business. Bed-ridden in his Daylesford cottage one weekend, Clay was working on the website for a vague idea he’d been playing around with about starting a company specialising in bespoke tours of local wineries. In his delirium, Clay inadvertently published the website. The next day, he started getting enquiries. When his wife Renai asked him what he’d done, Clay replied: “We’ve just started Daylesford Wine Tours, babe – we’d better buy a bus”.

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When Nina Isabella had her first taste of chai 20 years ago she knew it was good – but she also knew she could make it better.

“A friend made it for me the traditional way: he added the tea and spices to the pot, brought it to the boil, added milk and let it simmer,” says the founder of Atelier Botanica. “The spices were amazing. I loved the drink but the tea after that process was completely destroyed.”

Back then it was impossible to find a commercial version of the chai travellers tended to discover for the first time on their backpacking adventures in India. The appeal of the warming spices such as cardamom, cinnamon and cloves in a silken, milky warm tea was hard to deny, though - so Isabella set out on her own journey, experimenting with her own blends and quantities until she found the perfect recipe. What began as a small cottage industry (“basically I was peddling it in small packets to my girlfriends”) eventually turned into Atelier Botanica and a seven-strong range of all-organic artisan products.

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On a sunny hill in Musk, a red Fiat idles beside the bucolic home of a larrikin raconteur and legendary winemaker, Graeme Leith—the founder of Passing Clouds winery. “I’m fascinated, every time, to see what this vintage will bring out.” Graeme’s backdrop is a painterly scene of rolling hills and vines.

 “Every batch is fascinating. Every year is fascinating. The most surprising was picked in 1997. As I approach the end of my life, it’s interesting to think about how many things come back; a particular vintage or the songs that girls used to sing when they were skipping.”

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Woodend’s Holgate Brewhouse is celebrating Oktoberfest with a sneak preview of its new brewery and tasting room. 

If you’ve been to Woodend, you’ve seen – and without a doubt admired - the Holgate Brewhouse.

The imposing two-storey red-brick Victorian hotel is the de facto welcoming committee when you arrive in town off the highway from Melbourne. Even if you’ve just planning to drive past, the sight of people kicking back with a beer at the outside tables is enough to make anyone find room their itinerary for a quick stop.

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The urban winery movement arrived with a bang in Central Victoria with the June opening of Musk Lane – but first you have to find it.

Tucked down a no-name laneway in central Kyneton (the owners are in the process of having it officially anointed Turners Lane, after the Turner Bros Hardware yard that used to inhabit the site) this working winery, cellar door, wine bar, beer garden and neighbourhood hangout shows that you don’t have to leave the comforts of town for a taste of terroir.

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