July 3 - Barossa Valley Wineries

Today was a treat. We took the “Bums on Seats” tour of Barossa Wine Valley. Since we booked a tour that can have up to 10-ish people, we actually got lucky and got the whole van to ourselves! The wineries weren’t pre-arranged so we discussed with our driver Paul which ones we were most keen on going to. On the drive out he even told us all about his new Thai fiancee. That was pretty personal but we all like watching 90 day fiancee at home so it reminded us of that. Anyways, the drive through the Adelaide Hills to our first stop was unbelievable. It was unlike any other wine region I’d ever seen. The hills were vast and rolling (much bigger than the Mornington Peninsula area near Melbourne), and the vineyards were also surrounded by gorgeous windy rainforest looking trees and vines. I don’t know what it is about wine regions, but there is something that makes me smile so big when I’m there. I couldn’t get a proper picture of the scenery, but would highly recommend looking some up on gooogle!

Our first stop was the historic German village called Hahndorf. There, we had a bite at Haus Hahndorf, which is a cafe/bar/restaurant. We had yummy german apple cheesecake, apple strudel and a pear walnut tart. The other shops in Hahndorf included fudge shops, clock shops, knifemaking shops, boutique clothes, and candle shops.

We liked the informational ride out to the wineries as well. The English had brought people to Adelaide- this mostly included Italian, Greek and German miners and stonemason’s. 98% of the growing town of Adelaide up and went looking for gold in Melbourne during the gold rush era. The government at the time tried to entice people to come back to Adelaide because the city was bankrupt, but instead of the people coming back the government had to sell bad debt and print more money to stay afloat.

We passed through Loberthal and Cudlee Creek, to get to our first winery – Kersbrook Wine & Cider.

Our favorite there was the Troublemaker- sparkling rose. The next winery was the Kies Family winery, which was awesome as well! We loved the poster of the Deerstalker Merlot because the deer had been eating the grapes so they named the wine based off of that.

Our favorite, which we bought, was the Sparkling Tina Heysen Gold 2015. A quick stop at Jacob’s Creek to see the large windows and cute swing, then onto Rockford Barossa.

This winery was unique because the owner- Robert- loves restoring old boards from an 1850’s building. He bought the property in 1971 and opened the winery in 1984. Can you believe that a family with 11 kids slept in the rafters here?

There are 152 cellar doors in Barossa and many more places to buy wine byproducts as well! We stopped for lunch at the Clubhouse to sober up a bit from all the wine tastings! A lot of them had been 6-12 tastings, which was epic. Another stop was Maggies Beer Farm. There were tons of jams, sauces, wines to try, and a demo kitchen and scenic pond.

The ride back to Adelaide was full of windy roads through fields of wheat, canola and corn. What a beautiful day. I think besides the beautiful scenery and tasty wines, just like my trip to Mornington Peninsula, one of my favorites parts of the day was hearing about which wines my family liked and disliked. Personal wine tastes always surprise me in the best way!