Good bye Clare Valley, hello Barossa

8/3/2015

First up I went for a morning maintenance run today. This place here, Sevenhill, has got the word 'hill' in there for good reasons. It was a tough, but short 6.7km run.

After a healthy breakfast and a bit of read, I joined Bill to try out his new DSLR to do some test videos for his homepage for Talbots Block.

Together with the neighbors we walked to Stone Bridge, a winery that also does pizza in a wood fired oven. Great food, great company and good wine to wash it all down.

The Stone Bridge Winery - quite a wide range as well

Wood fired Pizza oven - quite a quirky design

Nothing better than a bit of humor and self praise on lables ;-)

Fire is a fascinating thing - and makes awesome pizza

After the 3km walk back, we got invited for coffee and cake at the neighbors and enjoyed a bottle of sparkling Shiraz from Seppelt (Victoria).

I spent a bit of the afternoon practicing playing guitar, reading Sir Richards book, planning tomorrows trip to Barossa and getting the van organized.

Dinner at Alex and Bill was great and we watched the Cricket match (part of the world cup) where Australia beat Sri Lanka in a match with heaps of runs. Well played by the Australians!

Distance traveled: 0km

9/3/2015

I've treated myself to a harsh 8.3km run before breakfast, enjoying the coolish 12 degrees in the morning. After breakfast and practicing playing the guitar and toughening up my still soft fingers on the steel strings, I said good bye to Bill and subsequently at Kirrihill to Alex. It was wonderful to getting to know Alex & Bill and staying at the shed in their vineyard was very comfortable. Overall the few days in Clare Valley were a treat – with exceptionally great wines, conversations and new people that I got to know.

On my way towards Barossa I stopped at Shut the Gate once more to quickly buy a bottle of their 2010 Single Site Shiraz as a gift for friends in Melbourne, I'm sure they will like the artwork on the label as well as this crafty Shiraz. Bumping into Rasa and Richard, the owners of the winery, I had a brief chat with them and ended up getting a discount on the wine and receiving a printed poster of their sensational artwork – awesome, hope I get that home (wherever this will be) safely!

Taylor's was the last winery on my list to visit in Clare Valley for this time – there are probably 30 more wineries with many exceptionally good ones to check out in the future! As I was driving, I only sampled two of their wines, and actually liked both of them:

the 2013 Jaraman Riesling and the 2013 TWP.

No comment on that 'architecture'

... only one glass of wine every day... that might be the right glass for that

TWP - good stuff and an award winning label, with the text being printed on the bottle

In Auburn, further down Clare Valley, I stopped at Sugar Rush to have a coffee, some Nama chocolates and finish the conversation I started at the cellar door opening at Kilikanoon a few days ago with Cathy, the owner of the shop. I'll send her some photos and a link to the Meisterstrasse homepage where my dad and Konfiserie Kern are presented.

Cathy's Sugar Rush in Auburn

The Dark Nama Chocolate and the Green Tea Nama - a pleasure to my taste buds

It's only a short drive to the Barossa and first up I stopped at Seppeltsfield. And was shocked how huge their operation is! I missed the tour where you can either taste a 100 year old port (I think the tour costs around $100) and the tour where you can taste the port from your birth year (think around $50) and after a brief walk around the facilities and recovering from the shock how many people are visiting the winery, decided to leave to visit some other places today before they all close their cellar doors at either 4 or 5pm.

I've parked the van at the local caravan park in Tanunda (formerly known as Langmeil, WW2 caused quite a few name changes here in South Australia) and walked to Turkey Flats, one of the wineries recommended to visit by Alex. Walking there, I went through the full tasting program and enjoyed their wines and the chat with the woman presenting the wines quite a lot.

Brings the romance back to the wine business

I guess after 170 years away from Germany/Prussia using correct grammar gets a bit harder

Turkey Flats wines

As it was still early enough, I walked into town to have a better look at what is there to see tomorrow and visit Langmeil winery. It is a very old, established winery and the two ladies at the counter were very friendly and forthcoming with a lot of different wines. I was quite impressed, especially by their premium wines ($40-$50 per bottle), like the 2012 Orphan Bank Shiraz, the 2012 The Fifth Wave Grenache and the 2012 Jackaman's Cabernet Sauvingnon – all coming from rather old, low yielding vines. I even ended up in a classical locked in situation (they already shut the cellar door), where I got some photos taken of me with a 6 liter bottle and another sample of the 2012 Orphan Bank Shiraz. Happy days!

The only wine they didn't have available for tasting was their flagship, the The Freedom Shiraz ($125 a bottle, Langtons classification 'Excellent'), apparently made of grapes that grow on vines that are over 170 years old. Too bad, would have been interesting to compare it with the Orphan Bank!

I went straight to the reds at Langmeil, but they still had a very wide range for testing

An Orphan Bank Shiraz, but the Methusalem size (6 liter!) of it - awesome

Look at the size difference to the normal wine bottle - unbevlievable

Another few more kilometers to walk back to the campground made me quite hungry and I BBQ'd some kangaroo skewers and enjoyed a huge salad.

I spent the evening reading and planning the next few days – there is a lot to see here!

Distance traveled: 116km