Genius in a Bottle - The Barossa Valley

GENIUS IN A BOTTLE – THE BAROSSA VALLEY – SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Whether you fancy a sip or a soak, it’s well worth immersing yourself in the wine culture of South Australia’s Barossa Valley. This is my favorite Australian wine region and the prices in the State are much less than other parts of the land down under. The wine was rich, dark and red and a heady scent arose as it flowed over my knees, I was soaking in it. The place to experience this is at the Endota Spa within the Novotel Barossa Valley Resort for my Shiraz spa treatment.

Barossa is an hour’s drive from Adelaide. The best time to go is in the Spring, when the vines are fresh and green, or in the Autumn just before vintage. The Barossa Valley Festival takes place in April each year.

The view from the spa windows looks out on the hills dipping down to Jacob’s Creek. My must see list given to me by a colleague from the South Australian Tourist Board included Rockford Wines, then off to Langmeil Winery to try their Freedom Shiraz, made from 160 year old vines which grow outside the cellar door. One visitor walking in behind me said “I want to photograph the smell”. Australian wines have been taking the world competitions by storm.

Lunch presented a delicious quandary. I could nip into Maggie Beer’s Pheasant Farm and grab a picnic basket of breads, her famous pheasant pate, some onions and a glass of Beer Bros wine. If I timed it right, I could also catch a 1.30 p.m. cooking demonstration in the kitchen where Maggie teams up with Simon Bryant to film the TV series, the Cook and the Chef. Otherwise, it would be Charles Melton’s cellar door for homemade port and duck rillette or, for lunch on the go, a pie from the Tanunda’s Apex Bakery. The afternoon passed in a giggle blur of wine tasting which included Slick Two Hands, little Bethany, and historic Seppelts with its stately buildings and aged port collections. Many of the small winemakers aren’t open to visitors but more than fifty of them share the limelight to daily tastings back at the hotel each evening. This gathering at the hotel is a perfect solution for travelers who are short of time. Instead, you can taste regional food and wine at your hotel.

If I could fit them in, I’d get to Illaparra’s fortified wine cellar door in Tanunda and the up and coming Murray Street winery. Not forgetting Peter Lehman’s where some of my best Barossa moments have been spent under the shady trees on the lawn with a group of colleagues, a bottle of sparkling red and their all Barossa Weighbridge platter, local mettwurst and lachshinken olives, cheese, pickles, bread and almonds.

For upmarket clients I use Dr. Mary Ann Kennedy, a wine expert, who runs a Taste of South Australia wine tours.

Wine giru Bruce Theile, Grand Master of the Barons of Barossa and spokesperson for Jacob’s Creek wines shared a few pointers about wine tasting. You can aim for five wineries but even if you are spitting, your palette’s going to be dead by the end of it he warned, and then you have got dinner afterwards. So, better to go for quality, not quantity. That rule goes for buying as well as tasting, but by now if you do happen to buy a dub bottle of wine, you know what to do with it. Throw it in the bathtub and climb in.

Maureen Jones, South Australian Specialist

All Horizons Travel/Frosch

825 Santa Cruz Avenue

Menlo Park

650-941-5810

www.allhorizonstvl.com

Maureen.Jones@Frosch.com