Barossa Valley

It took awhile, but finally got a chance to write up on my Barossa trip. I'll write about my Sunday trip to Hahndorf next (nothing too terribly exciting going on this week besides a lot of work).

Flew to Adelaide after work on Friday. I learned that on domestic flights, you can carry on as many darn liquids as you desire. This knowledge was handy on the flight back (ended up carrying on 3 bottles of wine). Also worth noting, my ID was never checked once I got to the airport. To print a boarding pass at one of those self-serving kiosks, you just need a name and destination...

Worth noting, Adelaide (maybe all of the State of South Australia?) is 30 minutes behind Sydney. That seems a bit, um, different, no?

We checked into the hostel around 11pm then decided to walk around a little bit. We found this cool Spanish bar that was playing some fun music and served Estrella Damm! The beer I often had in Barcelona.

Takes me back

They even served Mahou, a Madrid beer. Cool place.

Anyway, with an early tour in the morning, we headed back to the hostel. There were a total of 4 of us in the room. There was this other couple and when we turned off the lights, well, let's just say I heard some funny noises.... Why do I keep staying at hostels?

ANYway, next morning we checked out this market for breakfast. I wanted to make sure I had a full meal before our tour that kicked off at 9am.

At 9am we met up with Scott. He drove us around in his car to a total of 5 wineries (or cellar doors as they call them. Well, cellar doors are where you do tastings. Wineries are just places that make wine). If you're ever in Barossa and looking to do a tour, I highly recommend this guy. A little more expensive, but he has great knowledge, connections, and we often got discounts (such as being charged the "club member" price for a bottle of wine).

The area is beautiful. Barossa is about an hour drive outside of Adelaide.

The place was settled in the early 1800s. It's in a valley and has comparable climate to Napa and Sonoma. Ideal for wine producing. The most widely grown grape is the Shiraz (it's the same grape as a Syrah but called a Shiraz in Australia and South Africa). However, the wines produced in its early history were fortified wines. I'm not a big fan of dessert wines or this style, but I quickly learned that EVERY place had one. So I ended up trying a lot. Still not a huge fan, but fun to try. I also think I finally learned the difference between a tawny and a fortified wine/port (although apparently these names can be interchangeable or different, depending on where in the world you are). A tawny is aged in barrels, can be mixed with wine that has been aged 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, etc. And, a key point, it has been slowly exposed to air, oxidizing it. Oxygen is typically bad for wine (and beer, too), which is why you should finish a bottle soon after opening. However, with tawnys (tawnies? tawyn wines? whatever), you don't have to because it is already oxidized (giving it a golden brown color). Ports, on the other hand, aren't oxidized. And when the say fortified, that means alcohol (maybe a bourbon or just a clear alcohol) is added before fermenting is done. Yeast eats sugar, but by adding the alcohol before the fermenting is done, you kill the yeast before it eats all the sugar, giving the wine the sweet taste.

OK. On to the tastings. First stop was Ross Estate (although it was recently purchased and is undergoing a name change that other wineries were making fun of. Named after the goddess of the sun, or something like that). It should be noted that none of these places charged a tasting fee. And also unlike Napa or Sonoma Valley in California, you don't get just 4 or 5 tasting. Heck no. We probably had between 8 - 10 (at least) different wines (that includes ports) at each place. Check out all of these we had (and this photo is not all inclusive):

Not pictured: sweet Riesling, tawny...

About halfway through our tasting, we got a mini tour of the place.

It seems like they use American oak more than wineries in Napa. My theory is that American oak (as opposed to French oak) is also exotic to Australia. And yes, there is a difference. American oak is more porous than French oak. This has some impact on the taste and aging. You can (maybe) see the American oak barrels above. There are just a couple. They have orange rings on the bottom.



Starting from bottom left barrel, go 5 bottom barrels over

I ended up getting an old vine Grenache at this place (vine is around 100 years old). Really smokey and unique. I almost got a GSM (Grenache, Shiraz, and Mourvedre blend), but liked the Grenache a little better. GSMs are also a popular wine in Barossa (although, dangit, didn't end up getting one).

The next stock was Rockford. Good wines, but not on par with the rest of the wineries that were all exceptional.

 

 

I ended up getting a Shiraz (50.5%) and Cabernet Sauvignon (49.5%) blend. It was a cool looking winery

Super old barrels. Yep. Still using them. For tawny wine

 

After this it was lunch time. We went to Saltram where, for $15 each (Scott's discount), we got this massive spread of tasty dips, plus 2 9" inch pizzas, order of fries, and a salad. It was a stupid amount of food. The leftovers served as dinner that night.

 

Mmmm... pate

 

The wines at this place were, of course, also amazing. Seemed more focused on the traditional Shiraz. I ended up with a bottle of the Shiraz Tempranillo blend. Nice and peppery and spicy.

 

The next place was Tsharke. It's pronounced "sharkie" and Scott kept saying we were "going to sharkies next." Which I was confused by (Sharkies, coincidentally, is the same name as a dive bar in Sydney I've been to with co-workers). However, I finally realized that this must be the place on the itinerary that started with a "T."

 

 

This was the most unique winery. I guess it's run by a young guy and his wife who are experimenting with different grapes that aren't traditionally considered to be Barossa grapes. The guy is also apparently good at everything. He is a metal worker who made that sign, lights inside, etc. She made the pitchers, stain glass windows, etc. Power couple right there.

 

Fabulous wines (which, at this point in the day, I probably said about a million times. Poor tour guide...). I purchased a bottle of a Tourgia wine. It's a red wine made from Touriga Nacional grapes. It's a Portuguese grape that I'd never heard of before. Think cinnamon for taste. The pourer also said marzipan, but because I have no idea what marzipan tastes like, I'll have to take her word for it. I also purchased my one non-red wine, a Savagnin frizzante. I guess it doesn't have quite enough bubbles to be a sparkling wine. A refreshing wine that I look forward to enjoying on a hot summer day (which I guess I'll have to wait another year by the time I get back...?).

 

Our final stop was Langmeil. Their claim to fame is the oldest (believed) Shiraz vines in the world. We're talking 170 years here.

 

The "Freedom" one on the left is from the 170 year old vines

The first thing we tried was a sparkling Shiraz. More interesting than amazing to taste. This was followed up by various other Shiraz wines, had a Cabernet Sauvignon, tawny and fortified wine, and, of course, the 170 year old wine (well, the vines are that old, not the wine itself). It was an awesome wine (like many of the others at this place) although, no, I didn't end up purchasing it. It was $100+ a bottle, I believe. I ended up getting the 2011 Shiraz (from just "normal" vines).

 

If you want to know what 170 year old vines look like, look no further. Just like trees, these bad boys get bigger and bigger each year.

 

 

No. I'm not #teoing. I'm resting my arm on a wire. Could have posed better...

And thus ended a full day of wine tasting. Got back to Adelaide around 5:30 or so. I told Scott at Langmeil that Barossa is the one thing I've experienced that has convinced me to come back to Australia (not to say other places here weren't awesome). There's a lot of world out there to "repeat" a country to visit, but Barossa was just amazing. I gotta come back. And I'm really excited to share the 6 bottles of wine I purchased once I return to the States. And yes, I successfully got all 6 bottles back with me to Sydney. Thankfully, I got some boxes from a couple of the wineries. Whew.

 

Interesting fact: Most Australian wines are screw tops, not corked. The main reason is economics. It apparently saves a LOT of money. To me, it seems to make sense. I'm sure the technology on a screw off top is just as good (if not better) than a cork. Plus, you can screw it back on? I suppose some of the romance is lost, but pssh... I'd like to see more screw tops in the US. Similarly, I don't understand why craft beer bottles don't have screw off tops. Seems so much handier to be able to just twist than need to pry off a cap. Of course, why aren't more craft beers in cans rather than bottles? Blocks out all light and is lighter to transport and oh dear, waaay off topic here.