When I go back to the Margaret River wine country of southwest Australia (wild wallabies couldn’t keep me away), I think I’ll bring the family and stay at Julian and Lisa Wright’s vineyard farmhouse at Marri Wood Park. When I was last there, Lisa was just about to begin renting out the couple’s three-bedroom, settlers-style bungalow, set on a low rise above rolling vineyards, at a modest $225 AUD a night (for AUD — Australian dollars — read Canadian dollars; the currencies are pretty much on par these days).

At Marri Wood, I will get up early every morning, make coffee in the big farmhouse kitchen and take it out to the wrap-around veranda, where I will no doubt be greeted by the winery’s third partner, Harry, the Tibetan Terrier (page 207 in Wine Dogs of Australia). I will sit in the slanting sun and watch the mist rise from the pond beyond the grazing sheep and trellised vines.

Later, I will make a rich tapenade using the Margaret River region’s second biggest cash crop — olives — and use it to stuff one of those meaty fresh lamb legs that I can buy locally for a song. With that tucked away for dinner, I’ll stroll over to the wine-tasting pavilion to listen to Julian proselytize good-naturedly about early 20th-century Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner and the miracle of biodynamics.

I can appreciate Steiner’s groundbreaking organic agriculture methods, which have been embraced with particular fervour by Australian vineyards. But, as Julian enthuses, I will wonder afresh about the efficacy of burying cow manure in a cow horn with the prospect of disinterring and stirring the mixture counter-clockwise every six months to induce chaos and invite cosmic energy into the fertilizer. But then Julian will let me taste more of his marvelous chenin blanc reserve and I will be ready to buy my own cow horn and start a Rudolph Steiner fan club.

In the afternoon, I will sit on the veranda with a big pile of books by Australian authors like Peter Carey, Tim Winton, Geraldine Brooks and Christos Tsiolkas, and consume them with a bottle (or two) of the sauvignon-blanc-semillion blend for which Margaret River is renowned.

Before dinner, I will make the 30-second trek to the Marri Wood Park winery shed and get Julian to draw a couple of litres of the delicious, unprocessed cabernet sauvignon he keeps in barrels out back. He’ll remind me again that the wine will only last a couple of days and should be consumed quickly. The warning is well meant but unnecessary; I’ve learned that no wine I purchase from any Margaret River winery, regardless of its cellaring potential, will last more than a day or two if it is within my reach.

This holiday sounds ideal, except for one thing. I will be so content at Marri Wood Park, I might never leave. I might not take the time to luxuriate on the dozens of broad, empty beaches that are never more than 15 minutes away from wherever you are in Margaret River wine country. I might miss the windswept moors of Cape Leeuwin, where a bone-white, 19th-century lighthouse marks the spot where the Indian and Antarctic oceans meet. I might not make it to Busselton to see the longest pier in the southern hemisphere, a two-kilometre jetty appointed with clapboard houses of a hue that falls somewhere between the turquoise of the sea and the azure of the sky. I might miss the stalactite-studded caverns that welcome visitors up and down the coast.

Most distressingly, I may never get out to visit any of the other 87 wineries along the 90-kilometre stretch of verdant, Indian-Ocean coastline between the towns of Yallingup in the north and Augusta in the south, thus missing a small ocean of fine wine tasting. And that would be a shame, if not a travesty.

The Margaret River wine region is of relatively recent development in the history of Autralian viticulture. Until the ‘60s, its rolling landscape was used mostly to graze livestock. Then, agronomist John Gladstones published a paper pronouncing the region’s sandy loam and Mediterranean climate ideal for grape-growing. Winemakers began to take note.

Though young and compact (a blessing for those jaunting from winery to winery), its role in Australia’s wine culture is significant. With just three per cent of total Australian grape production, it accounts for more than 20 per cent of Australia’s premium wine market. And much of the local production comes from small, unpretentious, family-owned wineries, many of them just mom-and-pop operations. Literally.

Among the latter is Mongrel Creek Vineyard & Wine, so named, co-owner Shirley Schoppe told us, because the pretty little stream that runs through the property has a tendency to flood and turn nasty during the winter. “Mongrel” is the unflattering epitaph Aussies use when they want to be polite. The vineyard’s motto — “No pretence, no bullshit” — is not so polite.

The wine, on the other hand, is quite well-bred, and very affordable.

Knotting Hill Estate is a must-see; it has perhaps the handsomest setting of any new-world winery I’ve seen. To get to the tasting room, itself a marvel of modern architecture, you take a gracefully arched footbridge over a man-made lake from which the vineyards rise on a gentle knoll. Here, founder Brian Gould will pour you some of his multiple-gold-medal-winning 2007 Cabernet Merlot, which you can sip on the deck while watching fat perch at play in the lake.

Save some time for Vasse Felix, the region’s first vineyard, and still the most popular for visitors. It remains a family business, but the sprawling estate features a wonderful restaurant overlooking vineyards, and its landscaped grounds are studded with modern sculptures. If you want to eat here, plan on a late lunch rather than dinner. Vasse Felix, like most of the rest of southwestern Australia, closes at 5 p.m.

I’ve heard it suggested that the reason practically everything closes early in the Margaret River region is to keep cars off the road at night, thus lessening the chances of close encounters of the kangaroo kind (‘roos are plentiful enough here to be considered vermin). But I think it’s really so people can go home early and drink copious amounts of Margaret River wine without having to worry about who will be the “skipper” (Aussie for designated driver).

Of course, if I stayed at Julian and Lisa’s farmhouse, my wine supply would be within crawling distance. Hmmm.

Tony Atherton is a former Citizen writer now living in, and travelling extensively from, the Macau Special Administrative Region in southeast China, a felicitous spot where all the wine is duty-free.