Cupitt’s Estate has long drawn visitors to its outstanding paddock-to-plate restaurant, set on a hill overlooking a compact vineyard, lush farmland and a lake, just over two-and-a-half hours’ drive from Canberra or three hours from Sydney.
It’s a popular place for families too, with plenty of lawn and timber platforms for the kids to stretch out on while the grown-ups do what grown-ups will do at a winery.
Right next to the expansive restaurant is Cupitt’s cellar door, where you can sample some seriously good small-batch wines made with grapes sourced mostly from cool-climate regions across New South Wales and Victoria. (The vineyard below the restaurant is planted with sauvignon blanc grapes, and there are plans to plant gamay and cabernet franc on the next hill over.)
You’ll notice a range of Cupitt’s beers, bearing names like Milton Pilsner and Mollymook Pale Ale, and drool-worthy cheeses for sale at the cellar door – the estate is also home to a small brewery and a fromagerie, as well as an extensive kitchen garden.
Until recently, however, the winery’s guest accommodation had been limited to a small cottage that had been converted to a two-bedroom guesthouse. That cottage has now become the reception lobby where you check in to one of 10 one-bedroom luxury pods lined up in a row across the driveway.
Each pod is essentially a freestanding boutique hotel suite – there’s a separate bedroom with a king-sized bed at one end of the pod, with a generously sized bathroom off the hallway, while the living room and dining space is bookended with a kitchenette and a deep balcony.
If you book pod numbers 1 or 2, you’ll have an oversized bathtub on your balcony (the other pods will get balcony bathtubs down the track). Fill the tub and you can leisurely soak up the warble of magpies in the trees lining the creek bed winding down the grassy slope in front of you – or the low bellows of the cows further down the hill, depending on the time of day.
The boutique-hotel feel extends to the colour scheme, which is a soothing mix of light and dark greys and muted tones, and luxe touches such as striking black Alessi appliances, and Leif toiletries which will have you smelling of Kakadu plum, lemon myrtle and lilly pilly throughout your stay.
Complementing the decor is a curated selection of artworks from Van Rensburg Galleries, in nearby Milton, including striking linocut prints from South Coast artist Peta West. All the artworks on the walls are for sale – it’s part of matriarch Rosie Cupitt’s vision of showcasing local talent and products.
Ms Cupitt, who founded Slow Food Shoalhaven in 2006 to connect the people in the region with their local producers, was also the chief winemaker here for many years, before shifting her focus to cheese. Handing over the winemaking responsibilities to her son Wally was a natural progression, she said: “I’m a trained winemaker, and the microbiology of wine you can relate to cheese as well.”
She’s now revels in the creative side of cheese-making. “If you’re a sensible winemaker,” said Ms Cupitt, “you look at the grapes and you see what they tell you, what they taste like: the grapes dictate what ends up in the bottle. With cheese, providing you have good milk, there’s no boundaries.”
Keeping it local means buying that good cheese-making milk from a dairy farmer about a 10-minute drive from the estate. The family behind Narrawilly Farm, just outside of Milton, previously owned the land where the winery sits, before selling to the Cupitts and developing the nearby Croobyar farm. The Narrawilly and Croobyar dairy farms not only provide the milk but lend their names to two of Ms Cupitt’s cheeses, which you’ll find in the fridge in your kitchenette, alongside the winery’s sparkling wine and rose, a selection of Cupitt’s beers and local delicacies.
Between the winery restaurant, eateries in Milton and Rick Stein’s seafood restaurant at Bannisters in nearby Mollymook, there’s an increasingly well-rounded dining scene to dip into. That’s if you can drag yourself away from the well-stocked fridge and that bathtub for two.
Milton moments
While Cupitt’s is technically within the boundaries of the coastal town of Ulladulla, it’s only a few minutes’ drive outside of Milton. The Princes Highway cuts right through the middle of this cute inland town, making it a popular place to stop for a break. Grab a coffee at Peach, a cafe that uses beans from Melbourne’s St Ali roasters, or Pilgrims, where you can also score a delicious vegetarian lunch. Head to Small Town for neighbourhood bistro-style lunch on Fridays and Saturdays, or pick up cheese and sourdough bread for a picnic from Flour Water Salt bakery.
Venture into the arcades leading to a burrow of shops off the Princes Highway and you’ll find exquisite pottery sourced exclusively from Japan at Toka Ceramics.
And a five-minute drive inland from Milton brings you to Milk Haus, a wholefoods cafe set in the grounds of a former cheese factory. Book ahead to secure a table, as it’s very popular and only open for breakfast and lunch from Thursday to Monday.
