“At first taste, you scratch your head a little because of the wine’s complexity and then, as it settles in the glass, there’s a taste of strawberry and the influence of oak. Intriguing,” writes wine columnist RICHARD CALVER.

An old friend was visiting from Melbourne, not having been here since she was 14.

She’d never set foot in the National Gallery of Australia. It was the weekend of the Stomp festival, which coincides with the April harvest time in the Canberra wine region.

There were events we could have attended, even gone out to Murrumbateman for a relaxed tasting at one or more of many wineries that opened their doors on that weekend.

But with limited time, we didn’t want to drive, especially when tasting wine. It’s a funny thing about drink driving: the only thing quicker than the car is how fast your options disappear. I’m not going to make that mistake.

We went to the NGA and the Portrait Gallery and I marvelled at how lucky we are to have these free and jam-packed art spaces of world-class quality: it is good to step back and see your own hometown through the eyes of a visitor.

The galleries hadn’t changed, just the story I’d been telling myself about them. When I walk bridge to bridge, at least twice a week, they are just there, jewels that need a closer examination to see their worth. I think I failed when I told my friend this joke: how many surrealist painters does it take to change a lightbulb? A fish!

After the art immersion, we walked part of the loop of the lake to the Canberra Visitor’s centre where Emma Shaw, the general manager of Collector Wines, offers a taste of Canberra District wines as part of her Canberra Cellar Door business.

This is a well-priced experience: for a $10 tasting fee you get to taste a range of Canberra District wines and you get back the fee if you buy a bottle of wine. There were six wines on offer on the day we visited.

My friend is a lover of sauvignon blanc and on taste was a Kosciusko 2024 of this variety. Grown from fruit from Tumbarumba, this was an easy drinking savvy b. My friend said that it was more herbaceous than the NZ savvy bs that she normally drank and she was taken with that element.

Another noteworthy wine was the Sapling Yard 2025 The Four Pinots. This wine is steeped in the local area. It contains pinot gris from Boorowa, pinot noir from Tumbarumba, pinot meunier from Lake George and pinot blanc from the Sapling Yard Vineyard in Braidwood.

It is a wine that has plenty of mouthfeel, textural and has been blended well by the winemaker. At first taste, you scratch your head a little because of the wine’s complexity and then, as it settles in the glass, there’s a taste of strawberry and the influence of oak. Intriguing.

The other wine worthy of mention was one of some age: a Collector 2011 Marked Tree Red shiraz. This is a wine in its tertiary stage. In red wines, at this stage of development, fruit often becomes “jammy” or stewed. Tertiary aromas of tobacco, forest floor and mushroom may also be present.

This wine had a pleasant earthiness and a medium-bodied structure that was engaging and it had clearly aged well. It is my kind of wine.

The day was a success: my friend departed Canberra with an experience of our best art and a range of wines as part of something as prosaic as a Saturday lake walk.

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” –Annie Dillard