G'Day!

Barossa - Day 1 Our first day of wine tasting. We are all little groggy from the night before but breakfast is a great help and the wines of the Barossa await. I’m not going to provide any detailed notes on individual wines here, just general impressions. If you want more information you can look either at my Shiraz eBlog or at my Tasting Notes eBlog. First up is the ultra modern Two Hands Wines. The most impressive wines we taste here are the perfumed 2003 Lily’s Garden (a McLaren Vale shiraz) and the spicy 2003 Sophie’s Garden (Padtheway shiraz). Next is Seppeltsfield winery. Here taste some of their sparking shiraz. The Australian answer to champagne? Possibly not, but a uniquely Aussie drop of plonk. We’ll taste a number of these over the next few days, some of which are very, very good. Seppelts gives us two to sample their 2002 and their 1994 Show Sparkling. The latter is clearly the better wine. Very earthy, with characters of the barnyard, but soft and elegant in the mouth. But we are here for the fortified wines and so we move into the tasting of the Rare series of Muscat, Tokay, and Tawny and the 1983 Para Tawny. Miranda is in her element here, throwing wine everywhere as she tries to get every last nuance of flavor from her vigorous swirling of wine in the ridiculously small bowled glasses that hold the wines. Money and wine quickly change hands. The next few wineries were not on our planned itinerary but its good that they were included. First is Barossa Valley Estate for a light lunch and, well OK, perhaps just a taste or two. The wine that stands out here is their 1999 Sparking Shiraz. Outstanding! It is considerably better that the Seppelts wines and we immediately get a bottle to have with our meat and cheese lunch. Next is Gnadenfrei Estate. Here we taste the 2003 St Michael’s Shiraz. It’s a big blackberry jammy, tannic monster that’s 15.3% alcohol that will need quite a few years to soften. While you wait you could drink its little brother the 2003 Shiraz/Grenache mix which is not quite as big, but just as jammy. Next door Viking Vineyard is closed so we speed off to Heritage Estate where we are greeted at the cellar door by the cellar cat. Well its not so much a greeting as a roll of the head so that her chin can be scratched while she continues to sleep. Kaesler is next but it’s a quick visit as the air conditioners generate such cold blasts of air that its uncomfortable being in the tasting room let alone actually tasting wine. The last winery for the day is The Willows Vineyard where we want to taste The Bonesetter but its all sold out. However their Cabernet Sauvignon begins a discussion that lasts for days. The wine smells overwhelmingly of eucalyptus and it is explained to us that the grapes for the wine came from a vineyard surrounded on three sides by eucalyptus trees. Its not the minty character that many people find in young Cabernet wines but we look for it in every one we taste from that moment on. Wine will do that to you. Back in Tanunda we adjourn to the Tanunda Pub for dinner. Perhaps not unexpectedly no one wants any wine with dinner. Again not unexpectedly I go for the German sausages and when it comes with an unexpected pork chop it remains uneaten. Did I misread the menu, or did I really drink too much wine.