We woke up to our alarms Monday morning to get ready for our tour of the Barossa Valley that we had booked the day before. It was our interest in visiting wine country that brought us to Adelaide to begin with, and we were keen to explore the wineries, but didn’t want to navigate the valley ourselves (as we all know, wineries are much more fun if you don’t have to do the driving). We had inquired at our hotel about tours, and our concierge gave us a couple of brochures for Barossa trips on huge coaches, but the massive tour busses just didn’t appeal to us. At home, we had done smaller tours of Napa Valley and Sonoma County, and much preferred a more intimate experience in wine tasting. Gavin did a quick Google search for small group wine tours and Small Batch Wine Tours popped up, much to our good fortune! We were very last minute with our planning and so lucky that Matthew, the owner was available and able to book our tour for the next day (it helped that it was a winter Monday with a dismal weather forecast). As luck would have it, nobody else had signed up and we had him all to ourselves, AND he said he wouldn’t charge us for including Ewan.
Matthew was a fantastic guide in every way. We found him to be professional, knowledgeable, personable, passionate and thoughtful. He was so easy to talk with, and there was never a lull in conversation in his comfortable Mercedes van. He really took the time to understand our tastes and he completely tailored the day to find activities that would suit us. On the drive out to the Barossa he gave us lots of background a brief history of the area and South Australia in general. We stopped at the Barossa Reservoir to visit a very cool landmark known as the “Whispering Wall.” It was completed in 1902, and it was the first arch dam and also the highest dam in South Australia. It has amazing acoustic properties, as sound waves travel across it, and someone speaking at one end of the dam can be heard very clearly on the other side, almost 500 feet away!
Matthew first took us to two smaller tasting rooms Langmeil, and Rockford. The people were all so warm and welcoming, and all of them knew Matthew well and gave us such special attention. The wines we tasted were all wonderful, and we wished it were easier to take more home.
Matthew kept asking us which ones were our favorites so he could decide where to take us next. He honed in on our fondness for tawny ports, as this region is known for fortified wines. He suggested we go to Seppeltsfield, one of the oldest wineries in Australia, and a huge complex which also houses a very fine restaurant called Fino, where we had an amazing lunch sharing small, tapas style plates.
Seppeltsfield is famous for releasing a century old vintage port every year, beginning in 1978. The founder, Joseph Seppelts, had the incredible vision and foresight to lay down a barrel of his finest wine in 1878 with strict instructions not to release it for 100 years, and they continued this tradition every year since. As a result, they have their impressive Centennial Cellar, which houses a barrel of port from every single year since 1878, all lined up consecutively in “stacks” and labeled with each date.
We decided to participate in a very unique experience known as the “Taste Your Birth Year” tour, where our knowledgeable tour guide Nigel first took us through the Seppelts’ family home, giving us a brief family history and background of the origin of the winery. Next he took us into the Centennial Cellar, where we could choose two years from which to do a barrel tasting. Since Gavin and I were both born in 1973, that was the obvious choice for one tasting. We considered 1996 (the year we were married) for our other choice, but agreed that a 21 year old port wasn’t incredibly special, so instead we chose 1941, the birth year of Gavin’s father David, to honor him, as he tragically passed away unexpectedly last year.
Nigel first took us to the 1941 barrel and asked us some questions about David, before inserting his siphoning tool (I can’t remember what it is called), drawing out a taste of the 76 year old port, and carefully pouring it into a glass. He sniffed it appreciatively and noted its characteristics, then handed it to Gavin. He suggested we wait to taste it until after we tried the 1973 vintage. He was quite excited to note, as he walked us to our birth year barrel, that it was very interesting that 1941 was the first in the stack, and 1973 was the very last in the same stack, and said it was meant to be. He once again used his tool to siphon a taste of this historic liquid and drain it into a second glass. I couldn’t help but feel a little emotional and blink back a few tears as we tasted the two vintages, both delicious, but very different in character. The older port obviously had much darker color and deeper flavors of burnt toffee and cocoa, where the younger one tasted of golden caramel.
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| The 1941 barrel was the first in the stack. |
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| The 1973 barrel was the last in the stack. |
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| Ewan got to do a special taste of the non-alcoholic raspberry cordial. |
Having spent a good couple of hours at Seppeltsfield, we only had time to visit one more winery. Based on our previous tastings, and given our affinity for big, full bodied reds, Matthew planned our final stop to be Kalleske wines. While we were at Seppeltsfied, Matthew had left us on our own while we ate lunch and had our tour with Nigel. When he returned to get us, he had picked up some delicious salty bread sticks to cleanse our palates after drinking the sweet ports. Incidentally he had also picked up postage stamps for my postcards, as I had mentioned in passing that I needed to buy some and had been having difficulty getting to a post office (such a thoughtful guy!)
We arrived late in the afternoon to an empty tasting room where we were greeted by friendly Alex, who commented on my hair, in that hers was just like mine, and how it was suffering in the blustery, windy weather! It didn’t take me long to ascertain with her dark complexion, dark eyes, and thick dark curly hair, that she was Greek. I felt an instant connection to my Hellenic sister, and we proceeded through the tasting, chatting easily, laughing, and learning all about her family (her father is a master tradesman who made the cables on the Harbor Bridge in Sydney!) She spoke about her son, her husband, and her plans for her upcoming 40th birthday party. She poured wines that kept getting better and better and once again Gavin and I lamented that we had to strictly limit our purchases! At the end of the tasting I had to take a group photo with our new friends, then we embraced warmly as we said goodbye and thanked her.
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| Our new friends, Matthew (left) and Alex (right) |
Matthew drove us back to our hotel, then we freshened up for our final dinner in Adelaide at Andre’s Cucina, which was another recommendation from Matthew. We chose the set meal where they chose what to feed us, and every bite was delectable.
The next morning we had a few hours to kill before heading to the airport to catch our early afternoon flight to Sydney. We headed to the famous Central Adelaide Market, which had been closed on Sunday and Monday.
What a wonderful sensory experience! Now I love markets of pretty much every shape and form, but this one was really exceptional. There was a phenomenal selection of produce, cheeses, meats, baked goods, coffee, jams, wines, spirits, nuts and dried fruits, as well as other shops. We walked up and down the aisles, feasting our eyes, and indulging our taste buds with a few samples, wishing we had an equivalent at home, and envying the Adelaide locals for their good fortune! What a great place to live, and a fine place to end our amazing tour of Australia. We can’t wait to come back again!
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| We chose to skip the sample for this one... |
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