Yarra Valley Regional Farmers Market

The first Yarra Valley Regional Farmers Market was held in March 1998, which its organisers say makes it the longest running farmers' market in Victoria. It has been at Punt Road Winery on St Huberts Road in Coldstream long enough that the vineyard setting is part of the market's identity rather than a venue detail: stalls run across the winery grounds on the third Sunday of the month, with the Yarra Ranges behind them.

A food group, not a promoter

The market is run by the Yarra Valley Regional Food Group Inc, an association of the region's growers and producers rather than a commercial market operator. That ownership structure explains the stall list, which stays close to the paddock: fresh seasonal fruit and vegetables, fresh local meats, free-range eggs, herbs and spices, honey, chocolates, jams, preserves and sauces, fruit vinegars, locally baked bread, biscuits, flowers and coffee. Everything is sourced directly from the grower or producer, and in the Yarra Valley that means the person behind the trestle usually farms within half an hour of the winery gate.

A market that has run monthly since 1998 has outlasted most of the farmers' markets that opened alongside it, and it did so in a region where the competition for a Sunday morning is fierce. The winery grounds help: there is space to spread out, the produce stalls do not have to compete with a road, and the drive from Melbourne's east is under an hour.

Good to know before you go

Trading is 9am to 1.30pm on the third Sunday, a longer window than most farmers' markets, but the produce and meat stalls still thin out in the first two hours. Bring an esky if you are driving back to Melbourne, and bring bags. Entry and parking are free, and the shuttle runs when the main car park is full, so arriving mid-morning is not the problem it is at tighter sites. The market is outdoors on winery grounds, which is beautiful in October and exposed in July, so check the forecast. Coldstream sits on the Maroondah Highway, so this pairs easily with the valley's cellar doors on the way home. This is Wurundjeri country.