Barossa Valley Wineries Weekend

Friday afternoon, everyone came back to the office for a farewell speech for a rotational that was about to head home. Then we all went to the pub across the street for a few beers. John and Ellyn only had one beer and then decided to go for a run through Rymill Park across from our apartment before meeting some friends for dinner. (We figured we could at least work off some of the goodness we were about to partake in over the weekend!). We went to North Adelaide, the O Hotel, for dinner and it was great. (We are still contemplating why everything over here is called a “hotel” even if there are no hotel rooms. For instance, Ellyn was walking home the other night and a guy stopped to ask if she knew where the Electric Light Hotel was. Her response? Sure…its right over there but it’s a club; I don’t think they have any hotel rooms. Ha! He probably thought she was an idiot!) The rest of the group went to the movies after dinner but we headed home so we could get a good start on our overnight trip to the Barossa Valley!

We got up early, picked up our car and headed to the Barossa. This is Australia’s most well-known and largest wine region and we were super excited to be spending the weekend. We arrived in the Barossa around 11 in the morning and headed straight to Angaston to pick up a cooler basket full of cheeses to partake in the Barossa Valley Cheese Company’s Wine Trail. Essentially, we were given four different cheeses and crackers and a map of the wineries. There were 6 trails to choose from and it listed specific wines at each winery to pair with one of the cheeses. We’d already compiled a list of places to go from our own research/knowledge and from inputs from other people around the office. Our first stop was Maggie Beer Winery…interestingly enough, a woman whose last name is beer creates wine! She also has become a iconic Australian chef. This place was recommended to us for lunch. As soon as we walked in, we were not impressed. It extremely crowded and the focus seemed to be much more on food than wine. We went to the wine tasting table (which seemed to be made for only about 2 people tasting) and crowded in with a few other people. The woman serving the wine apparently kept running out of clean glass (really?!) so as she left to get clean glasses, Ellyn propped the cooler up on the table (remember how small it was…) and was looking through the wine map to see which cheese she should bring out to have ready for the tasting. But John gave Ellyn a look like, please don’t do it. To John’s credit, it was a bit crowded and we may have looked a bit crazy standing around the wine tasting table with our own cheese. So Ellyn put it away and decided the Wine and Cheese Trail should be reserved for smaller, less crowded wineries. After our wine tasting, we went to the counter to order our lunch. The menu consisted of about 15 different things, all of them being some variation of pate. Not that we’re hating on pate, but if you are such a great chef, don’t you think you’d serve something other than pate?! John could immediately tell Ellyn was not enjoying the experience and suggested we head somewhere else for lunch…great idea! So we hopped in the car, headed to the quaint little town of Tanunda and had a steak sandwich and chips…yum!

Then it was off to check out our “cottage”. One of Ellyn’s favorite wineries from last time was the Langmeil winery. When she found Langmeil Cottages online, with great reviews and similar architecture as the winery, she booked it thinking it was in the courtyard of the winery. But when we arrived at the winery and asked about the accommodation, we were given a blank stare. Right, so we’re in the wrong place. Back in the car, we head down the road maybe a quarter of mile and see our home for the night. At first glance, it is in someone’s backyard, which Ellyn thinks is a bit weird. But, to make matters even weirder, we have to walk through someone’s garage and knock on their backdoor to check in. Interesting. But, once we get all checked in and the “hosts” gives us a tour of the amenities, we love it! We have a little stone cottage with a front and back patio, there is a barbecue area, a hot tub and sauna, and a large shed filled with bikes. It is very quiet and secluded feeling. Just perfect! (See John's guided "tour" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SniTQ3ovygM.)

Once we were all checked in, Ellyn is ready to get to the wineries as the day is ticking by and she was put off a bit by the Maggie Beer experience. We took a look at our list and decided we should go to Rockford, as Ellyn remembered it being very small with a perfect little cellar door and are impressed with their wine and the ambiance. But, we’ve got more to see! We headed to Grant Burge, which is a much larger wine producer but with a nice cellar door and gorgeous grounds. We had a wonderful tasting there with a knowledgeable and friendly server. We tried some new varieties and some of their iconic varietals. After a walk around the grounds, we decided it would be a perfect place to get married and started mapping out where the food and band would be, when we realized, “Wait a minute! We’re already married!!” He-he!


Ellyn outside of Grange Burge Winery

Ellyn thought we should stop at Jacob’s Creek, not because she is necessarily a big fan of their wine or thought their cellar door was great, but more because it is an iconic Australian wine that is the USA so much, it seemed like a necessity! It was by far the largest cellar door we’d been to and the tasting list, like at Grant Burge, was overwhelming. But luckily, we had an extremely knowledgeable server who is actually studying wine making and marketing at the University of Adelaide. He walked us through the tasting list and John decided we should taste wines that were exclusive to the cellar door (good idea!). We actually tried some nice wines and enjoyed the open, sunny cellar door.

Next, it was on to two smaller vineyards – Keis and Burge Family (cousin to Grant Burge). We walk into Keis and both think we should turn around given the guy behind the tasting counter is in sweat pants and the other people in the cellar door were, well, let’s just say very relaxed. But we decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. We start with one of their “award winning” wines. Neither one of us were impressed with the wine and given that was described as one of their best, we decided we’d head out. Practically across the street was the Burge Family winery. We pulled up and noticed there were none other cars. We actually debated going in as that could mean the wine isn’t good and that the tasting may be a bit awkward since all the focus would be on us and our reactions to the wine. But, the winery had been recommended to us and since we were already there, we figured, why not? The tasting room was small with a nice feel and a huge wall of windows overlooking the vineyards. (Plus, I’m sure it helps John knows and likes the music playing on the stereo…Ellyn has never heard of it.) Regardless, the woman helping us is really friendly and tells us a bit about the wine. It was very much a boutique winery (not sold in many other locations other than the cellar door) and their wines are all organic. We enjoyed every wine we tasted and she had a few aged wines that were opened that we tasted and really liked. We stayed there for a while as the wine kept flowing and we were enjoying the views and the company!

We finally headed back to our cottage and opened some champagne that was left in the cottage for us! We watched part of the Crows footy game before heading into town for dinner. We went to The Clubhouse which was a pub style place as we wanted something casual and low key. Apparently, we were in for a treat since the wait for food was 45 minutes to an hour and we were sitting in the bar area (not the dining room). We played some Golden Tee and had some good people watching before our food arrived. The food was very good, though nothing overly exceptional. We headed back to the cottage and grabbed one of the bottles of wine we’d purchased earlier in the day and headed to the hot tub. (It is comical to note that when the host was showing us around the place, she said, “If the light in the hot tub room is on, we respect one another's privacy and don’t go in.” So we knew if the light was off, we’d have the place to ourselves, which was great. But we would like to note that as we were leaving for dinner earlier, the light was one and, let’s just say the couple in there obviously didn’t realize people can see through latticework!)

Sunday morning, we got up and enjoyed breakfast in the cottage (the hosts provided fresh fruit, croissants, toast, cereal, yogurt, milk, juice and coffee) and mimosas with our left over champagne! We then headed over to the bike shed to pick out bikes for the day! John immediately sees a tandem bike and we decide that would be fun! NOT! We don’t even make it halfway down the driveway before Ellyn is unconvinced on the whole tandem idea – those bikes are difficult to drive/steer! Plus, as John later noted, being on a tandem bike after some wine tastings might be dangerous! So we each picked out our own bikes and hit the road!

Sunday Morning Mimosas!

There is a wine trail called the Parra Road Wine Trail right down the road from our cottage that we decided would be fun to ride along. It goes through the vineyards and grounds of four wineries. Our first stop was Langmeil Winery but we noticed a large tour van parked outside and so we decided we’d head to the next stop. We go into Pete Lehman winery, which is a large producer in Australia and we’ve had some of their wines and really enjoyed them. We aren’t sure if it was because it was early in the morning or if we just still had the toothpaste taste in our mouth, but we really didn’t enjoy any of the wines. So we head over to the next stop, Richmond Grove. Again, as we pull up, we notice we are the only ones there but after our experience the day before at Burge Family, we decided maybe this was a good sign! Though the actual cellar door wasn’t much to look at on the inside (the outside was very pretty) the wine was wonderful! There were also quite a few aged wines open and the guy that was serving us would set up the young wine and then the aged wine so we could get a really good sense of how the type of wine aged. It was really informative and we learned that we really liked some of the aged wines and weren’t as impressed with others. As we left Richmond Grove, we started to become concerned about how we were going to ride our bikes and carry our wine! Oh well…we’ll worry about that later!


Richmond Grove Cellar Door


Ellyn and John on the Richmond Grove grounds.

We headed then to Stanley Lambert. We knew we were at home when we saw the American flag flying outside! (One of the winemakers is from the USA.) The cellar door was not very impressive and neither was the wine to be honest. So we got on our bikes and headed back to Langmeil. If Ellyn had any doubts about this place not living up to her memories, she was dead wrong. As soon as we walked in, we got a good feeling. It was a small, but not too small cellar door with a big fire going off to the side. We walked around the grounds before heading in to taste some of the goods! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2MQgr0DGZE)

We walked up to the counter and looked over the tasting list. We selected our first wine and then were going to narrow down a few others to try. But after reading the descriptions on the wine list, we couldn’t make a decision! They all sounded delicious and they had all the wine available for tasting (including wine not typically available for tasting). John wanted to go with some specific wines and Ellyn wanted to go for the wines that you couldn’t normally taste! So we pretty much tried all the wines! Before we even got out of the white wines, we were trying to narrow down what we wanted to buy. We continued on to the reds and when we got to the second nicest wine, Orphan Bank, Ellyn mentioned she’d bought a bottle of it a few years and ago and was letting it “age” back home and hadn’t opened it yet. (That’s code for – she is too sentimental and doesn’t want to open it yet!) Well, that’s all it took! She told a few of the others working with her about it and then filled our glasses up and told us to come to a back area and watch a video on how they transplanted the vines. After that, we went back to the tasting area and she handed us two glasses of their nicest bottle of Shiraz ($100 a bottle). She looked at the glasses and then doubled the amount that was in the tasting glass and told us to take a walk around the vineyard with our wine and enjoy it and take in all the old vines (up to a hundred years old). Needless to say, we LOVED the wine and the total experience. It was a highlight of the weekend. (And we were very glad we were on bikes at this point and not driving a car!) See tasting - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTw9xfmjvHo.

We rode back to the cottage and decided we should probably get something to eat so we headed to Angaston (about a 10-minute drive) to the Roaring 40s Café where the chef is world renowned for his pizzas. He won 7th place in a worldwide pizza making competition in Las Vegas. We didn’t even look at the menu – we asked what he’d cooked in the competition and got a large one of those! (It was quite delicious!) Then we headed to another winery recommended by a co-worker, Saltrams. It was a cool cellar door and the ambiance was really great. But we tried two wines and didn’t really get a good feel for wines, so we headed out the door! We decided we’d make one more stop before getting on the road home to Adelaide. Wolf Blass is huge winemaker and distributes all over the world so we weren’t expecting the small, cozy cellar door we liked but, like Jacobs Creek, we felt it a bit iconic and that we should at least go check it out. The cellar door was big but it was in a pretty setting and the wine was decent.


John outside of Wolf Blass winery.

We headed back to Adelaide and received our first parking ticket while unloading the car! But if that was the only negative of the trip, we’ll take it!

Next weekend…camping on Moreton Island off the coast of Brisbane!