A day in the Barossa

We’d been excited ever since the thought of having a taste of nice wine in the Barossa Valley. Today was not for the $15, 5Litre, 21 standard drinks goon wine we’ve been use to; today was for the $50 a bottle Penfolds and McGuigans wines to taste for free. It was a beautiful autumn day with clear blue skys, roses of all colours in bloom, and the sight of lovely golden orange leaves falling off the trees in the cool breeze.

Our first point of call was the McGuigan cellar door which was housed in an 18^th century building; one of the oldest building in the area. This cellar door would have to been the best winery off the whole day. The late Riesling and Moscato was definitely the best in town for a quite reasonable price too. The buildings around winery were absolutely amazing and having so well manicured lawns and gardens gave it a wonderful presence.

There were the famous wineries like Jacobs Creek and Wolf Blass but knowing how mass produced they’ve become we didn’t have high expectations and luckily we didn’t.  We found the smaller wineries had more character to the cellar door, gardens and had better quality grapes which were noticeable in the wines. I mean, the wines were nice at the larger wineries but not up to expectations for example:  at Penfold’s which is Australia’s most famous winery I had expectations that I would love most of their selection, but neither Dave or I liked anything. I think we had to taste the $200 bottle of Grange they had there to fully understand.

The day was perfect to experience such amazing wines and beautiful scenery with the one you love. Maybe next time we’ll get a designated driver and stay at the 5 star Novetel for the weekend.