We caught a flight from Sydney to Adelaide on Qantas, and we have to say it was one of the more enjoyable flights we have taken. The onboard food was excellent, and the Barossa Valley wines they poured were a sign of good things to come. I was able to catch a nice shot of Adelaide as the plane approached the airport. We opted to stay in wine country versus the city, so this is as close to the city as we’ll get on this trip.
The entire flight was seamless, including picking up our rental car and heading out of Adelaide and traveling north to the Barossa Valley wine region, where we are staying for the next 3 nights. Our hotel is called The Louise, and it’s a little bit of heaven on earth! It was a warm day so we decided to take a dip in their stunning pool, set among the vineyards.
This view would never get old.
Meals are included with your room at The Louise. Just outside the dining room is this inviting deck.
Gorgeous views in every direction.
We had some visitors show up near the deck. This was our first sighting of kangaroo’s!
I think they like all the attention they received! The whole dining room was excited to see them just outside the windows.
I swear these two were literally posing for us!
On our first full day in the Barossa we drove about 20 minutes to Henschke winery, considered one of the best in Australia. We had signed up for their most expensive tasting ($420 USD for two of us) which includes a taste of their most expensive wine, “Hill of Grace” ($600+ USD/bottle).
The Henschke family has owned their land for Six Generations! Our guide Kyra gave us all the details of their German family history.
Before trying any wines we hopped in the back of an SUV and took a ride out to the Hill of Grace vineyard, which is steeped in history. Adjacent to the vineyard are the ruins of an 1850’s building that served as a school and then a Post Office, before it was shut down in 1870.
The first vines at Hill of Grace were planted in 1860, the first year that construction started on the Lutheran Church directly adjacent to the vineyard. The church is still active today.
This row of vines are the initial plantings from 1860! These are on original French root-stock, as they’ve never had an issue with phylloxera here. Kyra actually had us step into containers lined with chlorine before entering the vineyard to make sure we didn’t have any contaminants on our shoes.
As we were walking the rows of vines we saw this kangaroo hiding in the shade. Apparently this is quite common.
Here is some recently picked Shiraz from the Hill of Grace, fermenting away in the cement vat. It smelled incredible!
The lineup of glasses for our upcoming tasting.
We tasted through about seven wines, with the last one being the $600+ Hill of Grace. It was quite good, but I’ve gotta say as a wine person I’ve yet to find a wine that I’d say “I’d pay $600+ for that!”
As much as I wanted to love these wines, particularly with the impressive history, I wasn’t really into them. Some of them were good, but none of them were great, with the possible exception of the Hill of Grace, which is just stupidly expensive. Needless to say, we didn’t end up buying any.
Our next stop was Penfolds, one of the most famous wineries in Australia. We had a wonderful host named Krysten, who was full of excellent information and had a great bubbly personality. Here is the list of wines we were going to taste as part of their Ultimate Tasting.
As has been the norm here in the Barossa Valley, we started with something not on their list, an actual Champagne that Penfolds has made for them in Reims, France (so they can legit call it Champagne). It was really good!
For another $50 Australian ($32 US) you could get a taste of their most expensive wine, the Grange. This is another ridiculously expensive $600+ USD wine! Nice to try for $32, no way I’m buying it!
Krysten also opened two Tawny “Ports” (they can’t call it that, but that’s what it is), and even though the 30 year old Port was older, the 20 year Port was the winner! We didn’t try the 50 year old Port, which is stupendously ridiculous at $3500 Australian dollars per bottle!!
At The Louise nightly happy hour they had this Murdoch Hill Sauvignon Blanc open, and it tasted exactly like Duckhorn SB. In other words, really fricking good! Yes, I had more than one glass!
The next morning the skies had changed dramatically. Rain was in the forecast, and the locals were all excited for it, as they are in the middle of a major drought.
Our wine excursion for today was The Grenache Project at a tasting room called Artisans of Barossa. This project has six winemakers from different wineries who all get fruit from the same vineyard picked on the same day at the same time, and they try to make the best wine they can from it.
Here is our excellent host Jonathan explaining the project. The wines definitely had some very distinct differences.
In the end none of them were worthy of purchase, but one of them impressed us enough we wanted to try a couple of wines from the same winemaker. The Meta Grenache Blanc from Schwarz was excellent!
As was the 2021 “The Schiller” Shiraz! We ended up buying a mixed 6-pack and had it shipped to our final hotel in Brisbane, so we don’t have to carry it around Australia with us. Shipping it straight home was going to be more than $20 USD/bottle, while shipping to Brisbane was free!
Based on Jonathan’s recommendation we then drove a short distance to a winery called Pindarie for lunch.
While their wines are just ok, they are mostly known for their food and the views!
I found it interesting to see the color differential between the vineyards, with one varietal staying green while the others are well into their fall colors.
We decided to stop wine tasting as we had tasted at least a dozen at Artisan’s, so we made our way to the nearby Kaiserstuhl Conservation Park for a short hike. The weather was perfect.
The short Stringybark loop takes you through some dense bush with the opportunity to see kangaroos.
The environment here is very reminiscent of what I expected Australian bush to look like!
This kangaroo was hiding in the shade of some of the bushes just off the trail. I barely spotted him.
More views from the bush!
We were the only ones on the trail, so it was pretty quiet outside of the constant squawking of various birds.
Kim spotted this little guy on the trail ahead of us. This cutie with the big nose and rough edges is an Echidna.
I took a short video of him approaching us and then thinking better of it.
As we were finishing the hike we saw plenty of kangaroo’s, and they were all watching us.
On our way back to the hotel we passed this lookout over the Barossa Valley. The area below the lookout was filled with what appeared to be modern art statues.
The eagle was pretty cool. The sky was amazing!
During our last night’s dinner I had to run outside and get a shot of this perfect sunset.
One last look from the rear deck of The Louise. Beautiful spot, and I definitely recommend it if you are coming to the Barossa Valley! It’s not cheap, but it’s perfectly located, includes breakfast and dinner, as well as all the wine you can drink!
Coming up, we take a short flight from Adelaide to nearby Kangaroo Island.
