Lot 5/ Lewis Rd
Heathcote VIC 3523
I had the good fortune of celebrating a friends 40th birthday with a whirlwind trip to Heathcote for lunch at Flynn's. It was literally whirlwind as we had a chartered plane flight from Essendon airport to Bendigo and a short bus ride to Flynn's.
SANGIOVESE PRESSINGS
Flynn's is one of the older Heathcote wineries established in 1998 and has been producing great Shiraz for years. We arrived in time to inspect the current vintage that was fermenting in open barrels and even more interesting we saw the pressing of their Sangiovese in progress and tasted the wine fresh from the press. While it was as young as you could get it definitely identified as a sangiovese with loads of grippy tannins.
After tasting some of the soon to be bottled "super shiraz" we moved to the restaurant which has a great relaxed openness to it. The first thing you notice upon browsing the menu is that it is short, but it does give you the confidence that if it is short that it means that what is there should be good and thankfully it is.
HOUSEMADE PARPADELLE WITH
SLOW COOKED BEEF & SHIRAZ RAGU
The main course I ordered was a very hearty bowl of house made pappadelle with beef ragu. It had wonderful chunks of slow cooked beef that fell apart in a rich sauce that had great balance of acidity and sweetness. It was a perfect match to their shiraz and while we are on this, the wine list has the back catalog of Flynn's wines at reasonable prices and also features other locals.
ORANGE BLOSSOM PANNACOTTA WITH SHORTBREAD
Dessert was an orange blossom pannacotta with shortbread, this was a nice light dessert that countered well to the robust main. The pannacotta was textured perfectly and not at all rubbery and the shortbread provided good balance.
While the relaxed atmosphere would have provided a great environment to spend a few more hours indulging in more Heathcote wines, we were off to return back to Melbourne. If only I could charter a plane more often, I would certainly return on a regular basis. As it stands though, Flynn's is one of the better cellar door restaurants I have been to with good non pretentious food in a nice setting.
Flynn's - 13/20
