Can you believe how quickly a year can pass by? I’m amazed that a year ago we were in Hawaii glowing in the aftermath of our wonderful wedding. I suppose the speed at which this year has passed can be attributed to all the life changes we’ve experienced in the past 12 months… They do say that as you get older time goes by faster – maybe that means we’re just getting old? What ever the case, we decided to celebrate our first anniversary in style by continuing the vineyard tradition exploring wine country in Australia!
Barossa Valley is the most well known wine region in Australia. It’s about an hour an a half northeast of Adelaide in South Australia. We’ve found that the best Shiraz we’ve ever tasted comes from this region of the country – there are a number of microclimates in the region which lend to great fruit development and the soil variations in the different parts of the valley really make a tremendous difference in the quality of the product. These features also allow for multiple varietals to be grown in the region, although they’re most famously known for their Shiraz.
We started the trip by getting up a 3:15AM to catch the first flight out on Saturday. You know we’re dedicated to our wine hobby when we’re willing to get up to go somewhere in the 3’s! The flight was quick and the drive from Adelaide was easy. The landscapes are pretty flat with a few rolling hills here and there. The area is mostly farm land, predominately occupied by varieties of grapes. We stayed in a little town called Tanunda which I swear was a replica of Radiator Springs from the movie, “Cars.” The entire town was made up of a single street with storefronts along either side. I literally ran down the exceptionally straight sidewalk from one end of the town clear to the other in less than 10 minutes.
We stayed at a serviced apartment called The Paranook House which was perfect for us – it had a full kitchen and plenty of space. It was built only recently so it was very modern and well appointed. We were able to walk to dinner one night to a restaurant called 1918. The location was perfect.
We had a series of 6 private tastings planned over the 3 days we were in town. Rusden, Langmeil, Kalleske, Rockford, Torbreck and Standish/Massena. Our favorites were Kalleske and Rusden by far! We learned that many of the winemakers from each of the vineyards we enjoy have worked with or for each other at one time – such a small community!
We started at Rusden (http://www.rusdenwines.com.au/ ). Christian Canute and Ben “Chippy” Chipman and are the winemakers. Chippy walked us through the range and gave us a tour of the winery. The Rusden wines are wonderfully handcrafted, and as with many of the boutique wines we love from Barossa Valley, they use the basket press technique to squeeze the grapes gently. This technique allows the wines to age naturally and the quality of the juice that comes from the gentle press is very high. Our favorite is the Black Guts, of which we have a number of vintages already in our cellar. They need to cellar for a good 10-15 years. On our way out the door, they opened a magnum of 2001 Black Guts for a lunch celebration at the vineyard. We were lucky enough to get a taste before they sent us on our way with a bottle of 2007 Black Guts to celebrate our anniversary. :)
Langmeil was our next stop. (http://www.langmeilwinery.com.au/ ) We spent some time with Toby who is a good friend and partner of Chippy’s in a side business, Tomfoolery Wines (http://www.tomfoolerywines.com.au/). They’ve been known to talk about this side venture as a way to fund their drinking habits (heehee) – there is no cellar door but it’s also one of our favorites.
Toby showed us around Langmeil which is a lovely vineyard. Their claim to fame is that they have the oldest Shiraz vines in all of Australia! The Freedom Shiraz is made from these vines. None of the wines really stood out to us at this vineyard – perhaps because it’s much larger than the boutique vineyards we love so well and therefore the personal attention paid to each wine is less than in a smaller vineyard.
Saturday we started the day at Kalleske (http://www.kalleske.com/). The vines have been producing since 1874, but they’ve only been marketing the name for the past 6-8 years. The wines are certified organic and rank up there with our favorite wines from Australia!
We met Sam at her house and followed her to the vineyard. They don’t have a cellar door as yet but they’ve just gotten approval to open one. In the meantime we did the tasting in the cask room at the vineyard. Their mascot, Wilber (a 400 lb pig) was in the paddock with his buddy, an orphaned lamb. It was only the three of us for the entire morning. The wines were wonderful – you can’t really go wrong with any of them. Our favorites were the Greenock Shiraz (2007), the Grenache (I’m normally not a fan of single vineyard Grenache but it was wonderful!) The Edward, 2008 first vintage release knocked our socks off! The fruit for Edward used to be used in Penfolds’ Grange and now they use it for their own wine. Sam was kind enough to give use the bottles of Greenock Shiraz and the Edward to finish off at the apartment. We were happy to drink them with dinner that night!
Continued...
