A Mini road trip to Murrumbateman's new-look cellar-door restaurant

I’m not sure I’ll be taking the Barton Highway to Murrumbateman ever again.

Leaving aside the annoying fact that taxpayers put in $500 million to duplicate the highway, only for the designs to leave a short section of single lane on the ACT side, there are simply better roads.

For instance, Murrumbatemen Road – a stretch of rolling country tarmac between Gundaroo and, in our case, Shaw Estate Winery.

The Canberra MINI Garage invited me to join its first ‘drive day’ on Thursday, 27 February, based on similar events held by Canberra BMW, usually reserved for prospective buyers.

Your typical test drive up and down the Melrose drag is all well and good, but there’s something extra special about picking your key from a bowl and heading out in convoy to a local winery or golf club, stopping every 15 minutes or so to try out another car.

And yes, the wines at the end are carefully measured out so you don’t find yourself upside down in a sheep paddock on the way home.

The afternoon starts with a safety briefing at the dealership, where we’re also assured of this. The cars are all lined up in a neat row outside and first up for me is a ‘Smokey Green’ Countryman S.

Now, of course, you’d know the days of the original bean-sized, Mr-Bean Minis are long over. Today, they are – to all intents and purposes – BMWs. And more maxi than mini.

Accordingly, the Countryman is roughly the same size as a BMW X1.

Where MINI gets its edge is in the flair department. For this model alone, there are 27 colour combinations, two wheel designs and three interior ‘worlds’ available.

The cabin is undoubtedly a work of art, and I spend the first few minutes just taking it all in. The touchscreen is round, at least in a nod to its namesake, and to power up the car, you twist a knob underneath like it were a key in the ignition.

Among the range of drive modes – or as MINI dubs them, ‘Experiences’ – there’s one called ‘Go-Kart’ which plays a little jingle and a man’s voice yelling “whoo-hoo” (literally) when selected.

For something with a 2-litre twin-turbo four-cylinder petrol engine and an ‘S’ badge, the Countryman felt a bit reluctant to be pushed anywhere in a hurry, so I ended up spending most of the first leg between Phillip and the IKEA car park in Go Kart.

I’ll get this complaint over with quickly, but I think the designers may have also overdone the girth of the steering wheel. It … um, tends to make your hands sore to hold for too long.

At IKEA, I’m straight into the five-door Cooper S hatch, in ‘Blazing Blue’. This is better. Even in its normal ‘Core’ mode and without a turbo, it’s far more enthusiastic, and with a raspy roar from the exhaust to boot.

Next was the petrol Countryman C, which had me wondering if perhaps you should save the extra money you’d spend on the S and get this instead.

The final stretch – and arguably the best – between the Gundaroo Inn and Shaw Estate, was reserved for peak-MINI experience, at the wheel of the two-door Cooper S.

Arguably the MINI’s most iconic shape has now become electric, and actually shares its platform with China’s GWM Ora, but somehow it defies all the usual EV problems of a lofty driving position and ponderous handling to feel very light and quick on its feet.

Not everyone will be a fan, but I found myself smiling at the fake sounds it made under acceleration, too. I could have been Anakin Skywalker, at the helm of his land speeder.

Maybe this again comes down to the sheer … um, thickness, of the thing, but the only niggle I had was perhaps a lack of feeling through the steering wheel. Welcome, over the lumpy regional NSW tarmac, but not so confidence-inspiring in the corners.

Shaw Estate has been around for a long time, and is perhaps a bit of a hidden gem of the Murrumbateman wine region if the views out the window were anything to go by.

But the family business was bought by developer DOMA last year, who are now hard at work putting the finishing touches to a new cellar-door restaurant for its grand opening on 22 March.

A “refined yet relaxed Mediterranean dining experience” is what they promise, with a menu “deeply rooted in Italian tradition while celebrating local and seasonal ingredients”.

I wish I could tell you differences in each of the wines I tasted, and what hints of tree or fruit my palate picked up, and what foods may be best paired with each.

But all I know is what was written on the sheet in front of me: there was a 2024 Riesling to start, followed by a 2023 Tempranillo, and then two reds – a 2024 Semillon Sauvignon Blanc and a 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon. And all were very nice.

A pleasant chat with the couple at my table, and we’re back on the road for the way home, this time on the straight and (mostly) wide Barton Highway. There are two cars left.

Like the Cooper, the Countryman also comes in EV form, and while the Countryman E doesn’t punch you in the charcuterie-filled gut like the Cooper S does, it still pulls away with a strong and smooth surge. Even this late in the day, the 462 km total range is still barely off full too.

I finish the trip in the Aceman, an all-new electric-only model designed to slot perfectly between its siblings in size.

Sure enough, it’s cosier than a Countryman inside but you’d actually be able to get at least two fully-grown people in the back, unlike the Cooper. And without sacrificing that low-slung, road-hugging feeling.

In fact, if I were to deliver a more helpful verdict on the cars than I did on the wine, it’d be: get this one.

Thanks to the Canberra MINI Garage for having us along on their drive day. Region has no commercial arrangement with the Canberra MINI Garage.