Yarra Valley Chocolaterie: Why visit the Yarra Valley chocolate factory?

How does free chocolate sound? The Yarra Valley Chocolaterie and Ice Creamery to the north-east of Melbourne offers free sampling. This Yarra Valley chocolate factory also runs chocolate-making classes.

What is the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie?

The Yarra Valley Chocolaterie is a chocolate factory in the Yarra Valley near Melbourne, Victoria. This Yarra Valley chocolate factory runs chocolate-making classes and offers free chocolate samples.

Yarra Valley tourism

The Yarra Valley to the north-east of Melbourne is most famous for its wineries. But as with other wine regions in Australia, food producers are herding around the winemakers.

The Yarra Valley Chocolaterie and Ice Creamery is a classic example of this. Based on a 40 acre estate with lawns, gardens and wetlands, this Yarra Valley chocolate factory is highly visitor-friendly.

Free chocolate tastings at the Yarra Valley chocolate factory

On a very basic level, the most important thing about this Yarra Valley chocolate factory is that it offers free tastings of chocolates. Big bowls of chocolate buttons are open to all for sampling.

Should you want a more in-depth tasting experience, the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie offers daily tasting sessions. These take place at 11am, 1pm and 3pm every day, costing $3. In these chocolate tasting sessions, guides take you through 12 hand-crafted chocolates of different styles and flavours.

Yarra Valley Chocolaterie classes

To go further into the world of chocolate, the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie also runs chocolate-making classes. Junior chocolatier classes tailor towards six to 12-year-old children, while the Chocolate Discovery classes are for adults.

There’s an on-site café, too. This offers Aussie classics such as the chicken parma and schnitzel rolls. But there are also stonebaked pizzas and good brunch options.

If you want to buy chocolates to take away, there are at least 250 different types of chocolate available. These include pastilles, chocolate bars, macarons, nougat, biscuits, chocolate-coated jelly snakes and chocolate animals. Many of them are made using herbs and nuts from the on-site garden. For more information, visit the Chocolaterie website.

Chocolates for sale at the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie. Image courtesy of Visit Victoria.

Where is the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie located?

The Yarra Valley Chocolaterie is just to the east of Yarra Glen, and just to the south of Alowyn Gardens. It’s a short drive north of the Yering Station winery and south of the Balgownie Estate. It is also feasibly reached by bike from Lilydale, where Yarra Cycles rents out bikes.

Other things to do in the Yarra Valley include hot air balloon rides, the Wirrawilla Rainforest Walk and doing the walk to La La Falls.

The Yarra Valley Chocolaterie has sister properties on the Great Ocean Road and Mornington Peninsula in Victoria. The Great Ocean Road Chocolaterie and Mornington Peninsula Chocolaterie are amongst several small scale chocolate makers in Australia. If you want something bigger try a chocolate walking tour of Adelaide, finishing up at Haigh’s Chocolates.