Day 5 – Barossa Valley

Today was our first real sightseeing day as we had arranged a tour of the Barossa Valley and some of its more famous wineries and attractions.  We had our tour with Tracy from Epicurian Wine Tours, a well-known wine tour company in the Adelaide Region. 


I was blown away by the beauty of the South Australian landscape. Golden fields dotted with sheep and hundred-year-old gum trees, natural pink and blue wildflowers grew in random patches on the side of the road.  Anyone in Canada would die to have them in their gardens but they grew naturall in this dry climate.  The grass was golden and the dark green grape vines grew in neat rows,  heavy dark berries  framing their gnarled trunks.  I was truly impressed.

We started off by visiting the Barossa Dam which is built  in such an angle that if you are standing on one side of the damn you can hear people speaking from the other side.  It was a pretty cool phenomenon you can see the video in the videos section.

We then visited our first winery an estate winery called Yuldara which means sparkling in the aboriginal language.  Our guide was knowledgeable with wines and she quickly gauged that my taste ran towards the lighter sweeter wines rather than the rich dry wines that my husband prefers.    Nevertheless,  we bought an amber caramel tasting port that we plan to share with my brother-in-law once we are back.

Our second place was a very small gem called Rockford.   The winery was housed in an old dairy farm and it’s European flair was a joy to behold.   Pierre couldn’t take enough pictures of it.  I walked away with a light and fruity red wine, perfect to share while on the beach.

On our way to lunch,  we stopped at a beautiful lookout that took in the view of almost the entire Barossa valley.  Even though the climate is hot,  this time of year it was quite chilly and I kept my sweater on when I wasn’t in the car.

Next was the famous Peter Lehman Winery which produces wines sold all over the world.  I must have tasted 10 different wines, but ended up buying a sparkling muscato.   We then ate a wonderful meat and cheese platter on a picnic table by the shade of a willow tree.

By then we were a bit sick of wine tasting (at least I was) and we made a pit stop at a home made food store where they sold ice cream such as Honey Burnt Fig Caramel or Vanilla Bean Elder Flower.

Our Last stop on the tour before heading home was Wolf Blass.   Founded by the german winemaker of the same name I was surprised to hear that it was recently sold to the Fosters beer company.  This was apparent when the visitor’s centre had more Wolf Blass merchandise than wine.  The wine was still of good quality and by then we had already bought four bottles at the other wineries and we could not fit more in our luggage.  So we didn’t buy anything.

We all slept on our way back to the hotel, it was a great day and one of the first really relaxing days I’ve had since leaving home last Saturday.  Tomorrow we leave for Cairns, and the beach.  I can’t wait to start working on some of the wines we bought.