Wine Country Exploring
 

Hello,

Planning to visit the wine country of Southeastern Australia in three weeks. Anybody suggest some good wineries to visit? Will also be hitting up Barossa Valley.

Piexcel

PS-What is a washboard in the Outback?

a washboard is a washboard - that ribbed thing that you scrub your clothes on OR that you use to play a tune on

On the other hand it could be a reference to a dirt road in poor condition, with a laterally corrugated surface.

There are so many wine regions in SE Australia (i.e. the states of South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales), and so many climatic and soil variations, that it's hard to know where to start. Maybe you could start with some pre-reading (try www.wineaustralia.com) and narrow down your search according to the styles that interest you most, and travel practicalities (available time and budget).

Barossa Valley north of Adelaide is a great place for a day trip - or stay at one of the range of B & Bs, hotels etc. Peppers has a resort there which I have only heard good things about. Otherwise have a look here :
http://www.southaustralia.com/home.asp

Our favourite wineries are Rockford, Langmeil,Henscke, Peter Lehmann for a picnic lunch (buy it there or shop in Tanunda)and for surroundings and history and not necessarily wine quality - Jacobs Creek, Chateau Tanunda and Seppletsfield.

For food - 1918 in Tanunda, Vintners and a really old pub on the Barossa Valley road just outside of Gawler - someone will know what it is called.

Also north of Adelaide are the wonderful Clare and Eden Valley wine growing areas. Lunch on the balcony at Skillagalee Winery is a great experience.

South of Adelaide there is the McLaren Vale winery area - near the lovely south coast, and in the south east of the state on the way to Mt Gambier you have the Padthaway and Coonawarra areas. Take your pick!

Thanks for the help. Am looking into everything you posted.

I have a automobile battery charger that uses the cigarette lighter port for my rechargeable AA batteries. Do Australian automobiles use the 12 Volt cigarette lighter like Americans?

Piexcel

"Do Australian automobiles use the 12 Volt cigarette lighter like Americans?"

Yes, they do.

I guess you've done your homework in regard to standard mains power being 240v, the mobile (cell) phone standard being GSM 900/1800 MHz and all that.

Adelaide's Southern Vales are an outstanding area for wine buffs, and I think it is better than the Barossa, which is often jam packed with tourists. It is closer to Adelaide, and has more small boutique wineries. It is less spoiled yet has numerous excellent restaurants.

having done both Adl hills, mclaren vale and fleruieu (please excuse spelling if its wrong, there's way to many u's in that word!) and the barossa, I'd say that they're all great and don't agree that one is better than the other. I was really pleasantly surprised with barossa, we were there the weekend of the barossa slow festival and the tanunda show and i didn't think it was that busy at all. I also thought it was very down to earth (compared with say yarra and hunter, where the know it all factor is quite high). we had a great weekend there and i thought it was just beautiful.

that said, mclaren vale is also great, and I probably prefer the mclaren vale style shiraz. it also has the blessed cheese, which is a fantastic thing to do.

If you can do both, I'd recommend it - that way you can decide for yourself.

Piexcel - you said south eastern - where are you actually going?

Lizzi101
That could be the Sandy Creek Pub or Wheatsheaf Inn that you were thinking of.

We spent three days in the Barossa Valley at a lovely bed and breakfast called the Caithness Manor (in Angston). I highly recommend this place if you are looking for accomodation.

We booked the Barossa on the recommendation of our tour book. Once we arrived in Australia we were told McLaren Vale is better, but by that time it was too late to change it. Not that it mattered, because we loved the Barossa - even though it is very touristy. We hired a private tour guide and visited about 7-8 wineries. We learned early on that we could not both try every wine so we split the tasting duties.

We liked the Tanunda Cellars, Langmeil, and Saltrem (sp?)- So much so that we ended up spending somewhere in the range of $1000.00 on wine to bring back to Canada (not so hard to do with the right packaging). We tried to stay away from wineries that exported to Canada, but we had to go in to Wolff Blass, where we were able to try the "world's best" shiraz.

I highly recommend you spend the money and hire a private tour guide. I also noticed that once the staff at the wineries figured out that my husband knew quite a bit about wine (not an expert but also definately not a dabbler) they tok us a lot more seriously.

Rockford, Charles Melton and Bethany if you are visiting the Barossa and like big reds - they are fabulous. McLaren Vale is also nice and Coonwarra has great reds as well - Barossa has small wineries that are are based also on traditional wine making opposed to the Hunter and Yarra who are just full on tourists and wine snobs (some). Enjoy

Turkey Flat is an excellent small winery in the Barossa. And in the McLaren Vale area, a good place to stop off for lunch (on a weekend) is Coriole Wines, while another is Penny Hill (excellent art gallery as well as meals).

Since the wine labels now uniformly state Southeastern Australia on exports (rather than NSW or such), this includes the wine country north of Sydney - my fave is Tyrrells, a family business forever, I first discovered them in 1970 and have been going there ever since. I find their wines all over the world, and cheaper than when I walk into their barn...

Many others, also - the region is called the Hunter Valley and the main info center is in Cessnock. Lots of daytours from Sydney by coach so you can drink (rather than spit) - do not drink and drive.

Thanks for the help everybody! I just returned from Oz and my trip took me from Koscuisko National Park of NSW through Victoria to the Flinders of SA. Had the chance to hit up Barossa and Clare Valleys. I also tried the region called the Macedon Ranges north of Melbourne.
Fantastic time.

Piexcel

Wineries,,,,head to Yarra Valley or Mornington Peninsula (85 wineries and counting) both have country scences and M has great beaches too. Lots have playgrounds if you have kids, some have home made breweries, some have wine and beer a great one on the Mornington Peninsula is the Dromana Estate beautiful setting...Higginbotham Winery is good...so many try this site has the opening times as well http://www.visitor.com.au/wineries.html