That night, dinner was served in Mitchelton’s bespoke underground cellar which is said to be part of the largest subterranean wine cellaring system in Australia with space enough for three football fields. It didn’t surprise, then, that the path to the loo was a long one but it had an unexpected bonus along the way, leading through a candle-lit stone passageway to a cavernous gallery of contemporary Indigenous art.

Overnight rain had applied a slick film to the roads so, as we took off the next morning, it was good to know Porsche’s optional Torque Vectoring Plus system was on board. This system will become your best friend if you’re into dynamic cornering, improving stability and control on roads with different levels of grip, as well as in the rain or snow.

There are only two cars in the Porsche model line-up that sell for under $100,000 – the Macan and Macan S. The most accessible price-point of $81,400 makes the entry-level Macan available to car buyers who may never have considered themselves as Porsche owners. Which was exactly the point, as it turns out. Porsche had to make an SUV to keep all those 911 buyers in the Porsche family rather than watching them peel off to competitor brands when their own families expanded and their wives started asking for an SUV – Australia’s most popular car of choice these days. As mentioned, that move put Porsche Cars Australia back in the game, moving from a company which, in the late 1990s, used to celebrate if it sold more than 500 cars a year to shifting 4484 cars in 2017 – more than half of them (2478) Macans

So, overall, I’d rate the Macan S as serious but great fun to be in. It’s a high-tech car that’s easy to drive but hard on the wallet given what extras you need to buy in on top of its $97,000 price tag, before on-road costs.