Adelaide

Now that's winemaking! (Langmeil Winery)
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Off we were to begin our six-week long road trip on the mainland. First was Adelaide – and yowza, it was hot when we arrived. A steamy 38 degrees Celsius or virtually 100 degrees farenheit.

We really liked Adelaide as it has kept it’s historic charm even though over one million people live here. We hit a local art center, the museum to check out the Aboriginal artifacts and spent time on the Rundle Street with the various restaurants. Our favorite evening here was in the park. Tropfest 2008 was taking place in Sydney which is the world’s largest short film festival. The 16 film finalists for the Australian-based competition were simulcast on a big screen in the park here. It was great fun. There were plenty of people planted on the grass for the event. We saw one guy who brought his beanbag chair – great idea I thought. I’ll have to try that at home.

Driving Miss Nancy...... to the wineries that is

Scott's new buddy at Charles Melton Winery
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Then, of course, there is wine. Did I mention yet that there are multiple wine regions just outside of Adelaide??? Yippee for me. Barossa is the largest and most renowned and we headed there first. It’s all about the Shiraz here. The wines are fantastic it’s so fun to visit the small, family owned wineries that have been in existence since the mid 1800s (and they have Shiraz vines just as old!). Thank goodness the vines have tap roots that grow down over 30 or 40 meters because it is hot and dry here and all else around was brown. We had a great tour at Langmeil which introduced us to the open barrel fermenting tanks which was interesting – especially when we were allowed to taste the grapes during their fermentation process. In case you are wondering, it tasted like jam.

Luckily they lent me a hat to survive the heat during a tour out to the vines
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The settlers here were mainly German and our B&B host actually asked us if any of our relatives lived here. She actually pulled out the phone book and showed us the few columns of Bartsch’s in the book. We must check that out when we get home.

We then moved on through the Adelaide Hills region – a cooler, higher altitude region with pretty rolling hills. Whites are king here – sauvignon blancs really, but I found a great Chardonnay at a small boutique winery that I loved. This was at Hahndorf Hills Winery in Hahndorf Village which was settled in 1839 by just over 50 German Lutheran families looking for a new life in South Australia. The village has retained much of it’s historic charm and was lovely.

The quaint builidings in Adelaide
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We then made our way south to the Coonawarra district. Here it’s all about the Cabernet Sauvignons (at least for me). Wow. So wonderful and smooth and more reasonably priced than those back home in Napa. Our favorite stop here was at one of the oldest wineries, Redman, where we had a nice long chat with John who gave us so much good information on the region and life in Australia in general. Good fun and Scott was good enough to drive me around to various visits with a smile on his face.

The historic Rockford Winery
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Next, we make our way east along the Great Ocean Road.

Tidbit of the Day:

The state of South Australia contributes 50% of all of the Australian wine production. It’s blessed in that it has diverse enough geography to product a wide range of wines – both cool climate wines as well as the full bodied Shiraz’s in the warm climate of Barossa Valley.

My favorite of the wines that we tried during our visits at 10 different wineries were:

Historic technics are still used at Rockford
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Charles Melton Shiraz & Rose' (Barossa), Leconfield & Redman Cab Sauv(Coonawarra ), Hahndorf Hills Chardonnay (Adelaide Hills)