After an early flight from Melbourne to Adelaide and shifting our clocks
by ½ hour, we checked in to our hotel, the Medina Grand Adelaide Treasury Hotel
and were promptly whisked away for a day in the Barossa Wine Region. Our driver and guide was a long time Adelaide resident not so dissimilar
to ourselves in age, family and “pre-retirement” career, making for a good
combination and interesting day. We arrived in the Barossa Valley having
learned much of the region’s history and about the wine industry of Australia.
Our first stop was at the Jacob's Creek Winery. This is a big business enterprise;
the visitor’s center alone dwarfs many small mom and pop wine operations. After
tea and coffee we toured the “demonstration vineyard” where they had examples
of 20+ grapes, all ripening and available for picking and tasting. Our wine tasting
followed, the beginning of “mucho vino” for a single day. After the tasting,
still at Jacob's Creek we were served lunch; Sheila had fish, Whiting to be
specific, while I had the “Swamp and Brush”, more commonly referred to as “Croc
and Roo” (croc’s taste and texture were similar to gator).
The second stop was at the Peter Lehman Winery for a tasting of eight or so wines; followed by the Richmond Grove Winery for a wine processing visit, “sipping from the barrel” and more tastings with our new Swiss friends.
Lastly, we arrived at the Seppeltsfield Winery for a “Cooperage Tour” and you guessed it, more wine tasting.
Seppeltsfield had the best history, including a 93 year old woman who started working at the winery 78 years ago, as well 1947 & 1948 barrels in by far the most interesting barrel storage
warehouse we've seen. 
Having had wine at four separate stops we were well into the extravagant mode, so for our travels we now are the proud owners of a small
bottle of a 1912 tasting wine, with our “MART 2012” logo printed on the certificate of authenticty.
We’ll hold it for a MART group tasting at Cairns or in New Zealand or possibly
have it as a survivor’s bottle for the last two MART 2012ers standing.
We arrived back at the hotel around 6 PM and needed a short nap before
heading out to the Adelaide central square for dinner. After awaking around 2
AM, we realized that dinner had either happened without us or wasn’t going to
happen; too much wine perhaps.
In summary it was a good day in the Barossa Valley.
Wow --- I hope you left a grape or two for us!
ReplyDeleteLots and lots of wine.....hmmm, that does not seem like a departure! Doing a good job with the picture mix dad. The thing here that disturbs me the most is the kangaroo consumption, I WILL NOT tell your granddaughter about that!
ReplyDelete