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The Barossa ValleyAt the end of March 1996, Fiona and I visited one of the world's great wine regionsthe Barossa Valley, South Australia. Originally settled by German immigrants who tried to reproduce the Riesling wines of their homeland, the Barossa is now best known for its thick, dark, meaty red wines made from low yielding, dry-grown Grenache and Shiraz vines. Yum. As well as having some of Australia's top vineyards, many of the big names in Australian wine have wineries here and produce wine from grapes trucked in from all over Southeast Australia. Here you will find a report of our trip together with reviews of some of the wineries and their produce. BackgroundThe Barossa Valley is about an hour's drive from Adelaide. However, we got there
rather indirectly by driving from Melbourne along the great ocean road (fine experience)
and then up through Coonawarra and Padthaway. Despite being two of Australia's finest wine
regions, neither of these offers much to the tourist mainly due to the fairly dull scenery
on offer and lack of population. This is a view of one of the Penfolds Coonawarra
vineyards. The Krondorf RoadAlong this road are located four superb wineries. In easy cycling distance of Tanunda (one of the three towns in the valley, the other two being Nuriootpa and Angaston), where we were staying, it was the obvious place to start our exploration. However, getting there turned out to be trickier than we had anticipated thanks to the combined effects of a puncture and our lack of saddle-fitness.
Krondorf is the fourth winery, located right at the end of the Krondorf Road. A larger winery, it is not quite as interesting to visit as the previous three, but it does produce some fine wines, particularly its whites. The Show Reserve Chardonnay is the best-known of these. Other Barossa Wineries
Seppeltsfield is a similarly industrial winery. Seppelts is owned by Southcorp (who also own Penfolds, Lindemans, Wynns, etc.) and this site is mainly concerned with the production of fortified wines (Seppelt are also specialists at sparkling wines, but these are made at their other big site in Victoria). The tour round the site we took was a bit limp, but you get a chance to try all the Seppelt wines at the end. The Trafford tawny is well worth a trygood value too. The sparkling shiraz is incredible. If you get a chance to visit the Barossa, don't miss the bistro at Saltram winery. The food is incredible, the prices fair and the wines, which you can try and then order by the glass, can be picked to perfectly complement your food. I enjoyed the Stonyfell Metala and the Cellar-Door Sauternes. One of the highlights of our trip. Details of our tripWe visited in the last week of March, which is early Autumn in the Barossa an corresponds to harvest. This was quite a good time to visit as the weather isn't too hot and there aren't too many tourists, although some of the smaller wineries are very busy at this time. We had a hire car and stayed in an on-site caravan at the Tanunda caravan park, which was very reasonably priced (c. £20 per night) and centrally located. Cycle hire was from Zinfandels coffee shop on Tanunda high street, and there are quite a few wineries in easy cycling distance. If you aren't used to cycling (that's us) don't overestimate your range (we discovered that Seppeltsfield is a long [hilly] way from Tanunda) or you will end up very saddle sore (that's us again). If you have only a short time, I wouldn't bother visiting the larger wineries but stick to the smaller more authentically Barossan ones (e.g. Charles Melton, Rockfords, Saltram, Grant Burge, Bethany, Heritage, Peter Lehmann, St Hallett). And, yes, I'd love to go back again.
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