Saturday 16th March 2019 - The Barossa Valley

Well you can’t really come to South Australia without visiting a winery, of which there are many. Many Australian wines that we drink at home come from this area.

We joined a tour for the day that took us out into the Adelaide hills, north of the city. The day was even warmer than yesterday with clear blue skies again, but they are desperate for rain here. We passed 2 reservoirs on the drive, one at 60% capacity but the other only at 37% and it looked very empty. Everything looks brown and shrivelled and you can see some of the plants and trees looking stressed. Of course when we got to the vineyards, they were green, although some did look almost burnt. There are hundreds of acres of vineyards, mixed in with other crops so there is a patchwork of colour. They have had temperatures into the 40’s over the summer and no real rain since December. We spotted our first wild kangaroos, but not able to get a photo!

The other thing we are noticing here is the amount of roofs that are covered with solar panels, mainly for electricity, but some for water too. It’s much more prevalent here than other areas we have seen, and with the amount of sunshine they get it makes a lot of sense!

The area we were being driven through was settled both by English and Germans back in the 1800’s. Some of the towns still have their German names, although during WW1 some were changed to Aboriginal names and then after the war some of these were not changed back. There are many Lutheran Churches and other indicators of a German influence.

Our first winery was at the Seppeltsfield Estate, at one point the largest winery in the area. It was run by the same family from the 1850’s until the 1980’s when it was sold and we think the wine business was not carried on. It was then bought by a new owner about 10 years ago who has invested in the business and it is becoming a much more important winery again. We sampled 6 different wines here, including 2 dessert wines and a red sparkling. Back in about 1878 they decided to lay down a barrel of wine to celebrate the owners birthday (I think!), and it was not to be opened for 100years! This has been done every year since whilst wine production was happening. Over that time the wine loses some of its volume due to evaporation, so after 100 years there is only around 40% left. It gets bottled and sold, for quite a sum.

2 bottles. The large one is 350mls and sells for $2000 and the small one is 100mls and sells for $700. Needless to say these were not part of the tasting!!

Then onto the second winery which was Wolf Blass, the biggest in the area and they export 85% of what they produce. We know the red and yellow labels, but they also have grey, gold, sapphire and platinum. They have won numerous awards which are displayed as you enter the visitor centre. So another 6 wines, including a 40 year old wine which was rather nice. We did not buy any!

Fortunately lunch followed this tasting but as we sat down at the table there were 3 more wines to have with the meal!

These were Penfold wines which we also know from home, although we wouldn’t normally have dessert wines! This one was rather good though!

We all got back on the bus then and headed for Hahndorf, Australia’s oldest German settlement. It was at least an hours journey and we slept for a reasonable part of that!! Once there we had 50 minutes to look around or get a coffee. We had ice cream though. Home made! Macadamia for me and salted caramel for Geoff. It was a tourist honeypot. Loads of people, the majority tourists, and shops of all different descriptions, many of them with a German theme.

It was a good day out and a long one, but nice to get into the countryside.