12 Best Sights in The Barossa Valley, South Australia

Renowned cook and food writer Maggie Beer is an icon of Australian cuisine. Burned-fig jam, ice cream, aged red wine vinegar, verjuice (a golden liquid made from unfermented grape juice and used for flavoring), and her signature Pheasant Farm pâté are some of the delights you can taste and buy at Maggie Beer's Farm Shop. Treat-filled picnic baskets are available all day to take out or dip into on the deck overlooking a tree-fringed pond full of turtles. Book ahead for interactive paid cooking demonstrations (A$60) and guided tastings.

If you find yourself needing a break from the heavy reds for which the Barossa is famous, this glass-fronted cellar door is the perfect antidote. Winemaker John Hughes is the titular Riesling Freak, and sources fruit from all across the state to make everything from lean, acid-driven numbers bursting with minerality and citrus to sweeter, European-style wines, sparkling, and even fortified versions of Riesling.

Joseph Seppelt was a Silesian farmer who purchased land in the Barossa after arriving in 1849. The wine-making business flourished under the control of his son, Benno, and today Seppeltsfield Winery and its splendid grounds are a tribute to the family's industry and enthusiasm. Fortified wine is a Seppeltsfield specialty; this is the only place in the world where you can find an unbroken lineage of vintages stretching back to 1878. Most notable is the exquisite 100-year-old Para Liqueur Tawny. Book ahead for the Centenary Tour (A$229) that allows you to walk through the cellar and taste it directly from the barrel. The Rosé Grenache and No. EC3 Portuguese blend are also worth tasting before exploring the rest of the complex that includes an excellent on-site restaurant, an art gallery and studios that you can visit, a soap factory that runs workshops, a gin distillery, and a coffee roaster as well as the Seppelt family mausoleum that overlooks an avenue planted with more than 2,000 palm trees.

Tasting here is a casual affair in a rustic timber-walled cellar door, which is warmed by a log fire in winter. After making sure the resident cats have vacated it first, settle into a director's chair at the long wooden table and let the staff pour. The signature wine is Nine Popes, a huge, decadent red blend named for a mistranslation of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and the ruby-red Rose of Virginia is an iconic Australian rosé. You can enjoy a glass of either with a cheese platter on the veranda and even stay the night in the converted church out the back. 

This is one of the most successful of the Barossa's younger wine labels. Wines include impressive Chardonnays, sought-after sparkling, and powerful reds. Don't miss the Holy Trinity—a highly acclaimed Rhône blend of Grenache, Shiraz, and Mourvèdre. The cellar door overlooks the vines at Krondorf, 5 km (3 miles) south of Tanunda and offers regional grazing platters in addition to tastings.

A family-friendly tribute to the purple flower that adorns the hills, Lyndoch Lavender Farm grows more than 80 varieties on 6 lush acres high above Lyndoch. Gourmet products infused with lavender are available for purchase, alongside essential oils, creams, and other products, including wine from the surrounding vineyards. The most spectacular time to visit is during flowering season from August to September.

Any winemaker will tell you that it takes a lot of good beer to make great wine, and you won’t find a finer brewer in the region than Brett Reiman. Cleansing ales of all kinds are on offer at this temple to beer, where you can choose from sixteen brews, but it’s the range of exceptional sours that really stand out. These barrel-fermented beers age in oak for up to three years as they develop an incredible complexity to rival the region’s more famous wines—don’t be surprised if you find yourself making space in your suitcase after a tasting. If you’re hungry, make-your-own produce platters are available, as are slabs of thin, pizza-like flammekueche.

A very big brother to the 19th-century Magill Estate in Adelaide, this massive wine-making outfit in the center of Nuriootpa lets you sip Shiraz, Cabernet, Merlot, Chardonnay, and Riesling blends at the cellar door. The Barossa Ultimate Tasting offers a rotating selection of the winery’s heaviest hitters, and you can add a taste of the celebrated Grange for A$50. There are also 90-minute blending workshops for A$95 per person.

This winery was founded by a larger-than-life Barossa character who had an influence on just about every winemaker in the valley. Art-hung stonework and a wood-burning fireplace make the 1880s tasting room one of the most pleasant in the valley and it is the only place to find the Black Queen Sparkling Shiraz. There are occasional concerts on the expansive lawns, and wooden tables encourage picnicking on the Weighbridge platter, a selection of local smoked meats, cheeses, and condiments that's big enough for two.

This is one of Australia's top estate wineries and a good representation of classic, artfully made Barossa wine. The modern and airy tasting room complements its original 1850s settler’s cottage cellar door, with subtle color tones and earthy textures. Taste the iconic Shiraz wines on the deck overlooking its renowned Descendant vineyard or upgrade to the more premium experience with the renowned Côte Rôtie–style RunRig that is blended with Viognier to create a powerful, elegant wine.

The interior of this 19th-century sandstone cottage is every bit as surprising as the wines produced here. Polished wood and glass surround the contemporary counter where the excellent staff leads you through the tasting of several "out of the box" reds, whites, and blends. The main event is the Garden Series range that showcases Shiraz sourced from six wine regions;. compare and contrast versions from the Barossa, McLaren Vale, and Adelaide Hills, among others. The Search For The Holy Grail (A$150) takes you into the estate vineyard for a behind-the-scenes look at how the wines are made.

Australia's oldest family-owned winery, the iconic Yalumba sits within a hugely impressive compound overlooked by an imposing clocktower. It's the only winery in the southern hemisphere with a functioning cooperage on-site, and that can be visited on one of the many tours that start from A$60. A range of tastings are available in the cellar door that is decorated with antique wine-making materials and mementos of the Hill Smith family, whose ancestors first planted vines in the Barossa in 1849. Try the award-winning Viognier and The Signature, a classic Australian "claret" blend of Shiraz and Cabernet. Private tours can be arranged upon request.