Winery Tour

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I'm a Brit living in Adelaide, South Australia. I'm getting married next month and have a fair few family and friends coming out to visit so have been thinking a lot recently about what they can do in and around Adelaide. Here are a few of the ideas we have had for visitors to Adelaide to do:

Things to do around Adelaide

A lot of non Australians just don't realise how big Australia is and a lot of people, both Aussies and others, don't realise just how big South Australia is, so here's a couple of statistics to put it in perspective; South Australia covers an area of 380,000 square miles - that is enough land to fit in Great Britain AND Ireland combined FOUR times over! And in this vast expanse there are approximately 1.5 million inhabitants, two thirds of whom live in Adelaide! Crazy! And despite the hugeness of South Australia there are heaps of great things to do around Adelaide - and they are all in easy reach of the city! We live in the southern suburbs of Adelaide and I think one of the most important moments for me in coming to grips with the reality of having migrated was when I realised how lucky we are - from here it takes about half hour/forty minutes to get to the city centre, about twenty minutes to our favorite beach, about twenty minutes to the wineries at McLaren Vale and about twenty minutes to get out into the countryside. Fantastic! So if you are planning a trip to Adelaide take a moment to think of some of these day trips as ideas of things to do around Adelaide:

Wine, Wineries and Vineyards!

Just a glance at British supermarket shelves can give you an idea of the huge amount of wine Australia makes and exports. Well, about 65% of Australian wine exports are produced in South Australia. And if you think the ones you get off the supermarket shelves are alright a quick trip to a few cellar doors will open your eyes! In easy reach of Adelaide are the Barossa Valley, Clare Valley, McLaren Vale, Langhorne Creek, Coonawarra, Adelaide Hills and Murray River (or the riverland). Each of these superior wine growing regions has a slightly different character so you could quite easily make a great holiday of visiting them all. Personally I would suggest doing one region per trip to Australia unless you are a real wine connoisseur and I would consider four or five wineries enough for a days tasting - otherwise your palate just gets worn out and you can't taste the difference anyway. Also do think about the dangers of drink driving - police here can and do pull drivers over for random breath tests and even if you have used the spittoon you may have had too much so think about hiring a driver or joining a tour group.

As a tour to do in South Australia the wineries are surely a must! Unfortunately I have so far only had the opportunity to tour Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale so this article won't be as full as I would have liked but I will add to it as and when I visit the other regions:

Winery Tour of The Barossa Valley

I was fortunate enough to be treated to a long weekend in the Barossa Valley by the parents of my fiancee. We stayed at the Novotel Resort which was nice and had all the facilities you could wish for but it was also a great idea for making a really good weekend of it and making the most of the trip. About an hour to the north of Adelaide, the Barossa Valley is host to some of the really famous vineyards and wines:- Penfolds Grange is considered by many to be one of the worlds greatest wines, Jacobs Creek is quite possibly the most well known wine producer in the world and Seppeltsfield you have probably heard of too. But in my humble opinion the greatest thing about visiting these regions is to visit the cellar doors of some of the less well know wineries and to sample some of the wine you will almost certainly never find in the supermarkets or off-licences back home. You can find guides both online and in the bookshops but why not take a few risks and just drop in on an unheard of (by you) winery just because you can? I reckon that is part of the fun of it!

My Father-in-Law to be insisted our first stop should be the cellar door of Rockfords. This was a great choice, I have to admit, and we not only sampled and bought some great wine but also some chutneys and preserves. The old man spent an arm and a leg on a magnum of Basket-Press Shiraz only to indulge us all by opening it over dinner that night - what a treat! We also visited a winery called Charles Melton - the Shiraz we bought there I personally consider the finest red wine I have ever drunk. The Barossa Valley surely produces the best Shiraz's in the world?!

Winery Tour of The McLaren Vale

McLaren Vale is probably about 45 minutes drive from the centre of Adelaide but from where I live in the southern suburbs it is about 20 minutes drive. If I wanted to be seriously indulgent (and could afford it) I could skip down the road and pick up a bottle of fine wine straight from the cellar door of the winery for every meal. McLaren Vale, apart from being a wine growing region, is also the name of the town and it is a nice town with a good bakery and some restaurants and shops etc. To make a nice day out of visiting the wineries, stop in McLaren Vale and pick up a picnic so you can take a nice break from the cellar doors. You might like to stop at McLarens on the Lake to eat your picnic and feed the ducks.

On our last tour of wineries we stopped at Pertaringa, which was really nice and produced some very good affordable wine, Wirra Wirra is also a very good one - probably one of the vineyards you have heard of too as their 'Church Block' is world famous. Wirra Wirra has a great fence (ok, I know that sounds weird!) as you turn in that looks like it is made from entire trees! The other winery of real note that we visited on that tour was Coreole. Situated on a hill with fabulous views across the vineyards, they have plaques by the vines along the drive telling you that the shiraz vines were planted in 1918 and the cabernet in 1980 something (I may have these the wrong way around and the dates slightly out but you get the idea:). For those of you that don't know, the general rule of thumb is that the older the vine the better the grape.

So that is my experience of taking a tour of wineries in South Australia. Before too long we shall take a trip down to Langhorne Creek, which is probably an extra half hours drive south of McLaren Vale. Also on our list is Adelaide Hills, which again really aren't that far from us and boast to date back to 1841 (the first Hills vintage). Clare Valley is probably not a region we will tour soon as it is quite a drive (about 134km north of Adelaide) though since it is the home of Australian Riesling it must be worth a trip sometime. We are more likely to visit Coonawarra - although it is about four hours south east of Adelaide it is easy to tie in with another trip as it is close to Naracoorte Caves, Mount Gambier and the Great Ocean Road.

The Personal Opinions and Observations of Matt Maclay-Ross

For official advice you could try http://www.southaustralia.com