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<\/a><\/p>\nThe 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.\u00a0 Our hotel is called The Louise<\/a><\/strong>, and it’s a little bit of heaven on earth!\u00a0 It was a warm day so we decided to take a dip in their stunning pool, set among the vineyards.<\/p>\n This view would never get old.<\/p>\n Meals are included with your room at The Louise.\u00a0 Just outside the dining room is this inviting deck.<\/p>\n Gorgeous views in every direction.<\/p>\n We had some visitors show up near the deck.\u00a0 This was our first sighting of kangaroo’s!<\/p>\n I think they like all the attention they received!\u00a0 The whole dining room was excited to see them just outside the windows.<\/p>\n I swear these two were literally posing for us!<\/p>\n On our first full day in the Barossa we drove about 20 minutes to Henschke<\/a> <\/strong>winery, considered one of the best in Australia.\u00a0 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).<\/p>\n The Henschke family has owned their land for Six Generations!\u00a0 Our guide Kyra gave us all the details of their German family history.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 The church is still active today.<\/p>\n This row of vines are the initial plantings from 1860!\u00a0 These are on original French root-stock, as they’ve never had an issue with phylloxera here.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n As we were walking the rows of vines we saw this kangaroo hiding in the shade.\u00a0 Apparently this is quite common.<\/p>\n Here is some recently picked Shiraz from the Hill of Grace, fermenting away in the cement vat.\u00a0 It smelled incredible!<\/p>\n The lineup of glasses for our upcoming tasting.<\/p>\n We tasted through about seven wines, with the last one being the $600+ Hill of Grace.\u00a0 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!”<\/p>\n As much as I wanted to love these wines, particularly with the impressive history, I wasn’t really into them.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Needless to say, we didn’t end up buying any.<\/p>\n Our next stop was Penfolds, one of the most famous wineries in Australia.\u00a0 We had a wonderful host named Krysten, who was full of excellent information and\u00a0 had a great bubbly personality.\u00a0 Here is the list of wines we were going to taste as part of their Ultimate Tasting.<\/p>\n 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).\u00a0 It was really good!<\/p>\n For another $50 Australian ($32 US) you could get a taste of their most expensive wine, the Grange.\u00a0 This is another ridiculously expensive $600+ USD wine!\u00a0 Nice to try for $32, no way I’m buying it!<\/p>\n Krysten also opened two Tawny “Ports” (they can’t call it that, but that’s what it is), and even though\u00a0 the 30 year old Port was older, the 20 year Port was the winner!\u00a0 We didn’t try the 50 year old Port, which is stupendously ridiculous at $3500 Australian dollars per bottle!!<\/p>\n At The Louise nightly happy hour they had this Murdoch Hill Sauvignon Blanc open, and it tasted exactly<\/strong> like Duckhorn SB.\u00a0 In other words, really fricking good!\u00a0 Yes, I had more than one glass!<\/p>\n The next morning the skies had changed dramatically.\u00a0 Rain was in the forecast, and the locals were all excited for it, as they are in the middle of a major drought.<\/p>\n Our wine excursion for today was The Grenache Project at a tasting room called Artisans of Barossa.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n Here is our excellent host Jonathan explaining the project.\u00a0 The wines definitely had some very distinct differences.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 The Meta Grenache Blanc from Schwarz was excellent!<\/p>\n As was the 2021 “The Schiller” Shiraz!\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Shipping it straight home was going to be more than $20 USD\/bottle, while shipping to Brisbane was free!<\/p>\n Based on Jonathan’s recommendation we then drove a short distance to a winery called Pindarie for lunch.<\/p>\n While their wines are just ok, they are mostly known for their food and the views!<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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<\/a><\/strong> for a short hike.\u00a0 The weather was perfect.<\/p>\n The short Stringybark loop takes you through some dense bush with the opportunity to see kangaroos.<\/p>\n The environment here is very reminiscent of what I expected Australian bush to look like!<\/p>\n This kangaroo was hiding in the shade of some of the bushes just off the trail.\u00a0 I barely spotted him.<\/p>\n More views from the bush!<\/p>\n We were the only ones on the trail, so it was pretty quiet outside of the constant squawking of various birds.<\/p>\n Kim spotted this little guy on the trail ahead of us.\u00a0 This cutie with the big nose and rough edges is an Echidna.<\/p>\n I took a short video of him approaching us and then thinking better of 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