Visited Sunny Ridge Strawberry Farm in Main Ridge (Mornington Peninsula). I’ve heard about these from travel shows like Postcards and it looked like a great place to find local alcoholic drinks, jams and food. I think it started out as a family business and has grown extensively.
It seemed like it was quite a popular place, many cars parked there already before midday on a weekday too!
Sunny Ridge first and foremost is a strawberry farm, where customers can pick their own fruit. Usually customers are able to pick not just strawberries but raspberries, blueberries and avocadoes too, although I think due to the strange Victorian whether we had that they didn’t have enough plants for picking.
You can also buy their produce if you didn’t want to pick them yourself, it also has jams, syrups, wines, chocolates, ice creams and a nice selection of desserts and snacks. Their selection of jams; strawberry (of course), raspberry, and I think blackberry, in assorted sizes. Plus many tasty looking chocolate and fruit syrups like passionfruit and strawberry. Sunny Ridge has chocolate coated freeze dried strawberries and blueberries too. I didn’t get to try them but it looked quite nice.
Wines
We tasted a wide selection of alcoholic beverages under the brand Robello Wines, which is an extension from the family business. liquors (two variations – a Fragola Cielo Strawberry Liquor and Fragola Amore Strawberry Cream Liquor) both quite sweet and light. The strawberry cream liquor tasted like a strawberry milkshake, a similar texture to Baileys.
They stocked a Charlotte, a 100% Strawberry Sparkling which has won numerous Australian Fruit and Wine awards. This had such a nice flavour, a strong strawberry punch. An instant like.
The Strawbellini (Moscato Strawberry Sparkling) was also another favourite of mine. It was refreshing and had a nice strawberry flavour to it too. This wine has recently been placed in the top 5 sparkling wines of the San Francisco International Wine Competition, that is quite the feat.
The Lolo Semi SweetStrawberry Wine was a bit of a let down after trying two fantastic sparkling wines, but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t good. It just didn’t pack the same punch as the two sparking wines.
They also stock a Fragola Port, which I somehow missed.
Sunny Ridge also had a new line of ciders, Apple and Apple & Strawberry. The Apple & Strawberry cider had a nice flavour, it had a sweeter and well, stronger flavour to it then the Apple. The Apple one, compared to the Strongbow varieties, it didn’t really stack up but the Strawberry cider did have a different flavour to keep me interested.
For the non-alcoholics, they had Sparkling Strawberry flavoured beverage which wasn’t there for tasting, but I presume with the many fantastic strawberry wines they had, that this one would be excellent too.
Cafe
Then we went onto the cafe, they had a great range in their menu. Cakes, tarts, ice creams, sundae, teas, milkshakes. Pretty much everything. Their desserts looked quite scrumptious, it was hard to choose!
We ended up trying the Strawberry cheesecake, Devonshire tea and their ice cream.
The cheesecake was served with a chocolate and strawberry syrup, whipped cream and fresh strawberries. It looked and tasted fantastic, it had such a great taste to it, it was smooth and soft with a nice biscuit bottom. Plus the syrups and cream just added an extra texture and flavour to it all.
The Devonshire tea (aka Scones + jam) was nice, it wasn’t the lightest and fluffiest scones I’ve ever eaten but it was certainly better than the ones I attempted to make.
We tried the Roasted almond ice cream and the Strawberry ice cream. I liked them both, it tasted real and fresh without any fake flavouring that many ice creams seemed to have. There was a Strawberry farm in Tasmania that tops this one, but it was still good nonetheless.
We managed to devour everything and Sunny Ridge definitely made a lasting impression on me.
Their wide selection of products means we’ll be heading there again and I can see why it is so popular and a great tourist attraction for the Mornington Peninsula.
Check it out, it is certainly worth a stop by:
Sunny Ridge Strawberry Farm
244 Shands Road, Main Ridge
Victoria 3928,
AUSTRALIA
Phone: +61 3 5989 4500
Email: info@sunnyridge.com.au
Opens Daily 9am to 5pm (Nov to Apr) or weekends 11am to 4pm (May to Oct)
ohdenny 