The Barossa Valley is an iconic region renowned for its rich, full-bodied shiraz wine, a style many people consider to be quintessentially Australian. Located just 64 kilometres from Adelaide, the Barossa is a leisurely drive from an international airport. With its countryside of rolling hills and pastel plains, opulent cellar doors and a rich depth of history, the Barossa Valley is easy to visit, has lots of attractions and, unsurprisingly, the region is far more varied than the generalisations make out.
The Barossa Valley has a rich wine history dating back to the 1840s, when German and English settlers began planting vines. It is home to some of the oldest wineries in Australia as well as some of its most famous. The region produces wines of excellent quality, partly due to its Mediterranean climate and terroir. Barossa is particularly renowned for its Shiraz, however about forty different grape varieties are grown here, each one with its own character.
It’s worth noting that most wine tasting experiences in the Barossa Valley need to be pre-booked and pre-paid, some wineries refunding tasting costs upon purchase of wine at the cellar door. Either join a winery tour of the area or hire a car in Adelaide, choosing your wineries to visit and plotting your journey on a map. Then you can book your experiences online.
With over 150 wineries in the Barossa and 80 cellar doors, our FOMO ‘fear of missing out’ on a great winery or two is fully justified. We could spend weeks visiting cellar doors, so how do you choose which ones to visit over a long weekend? We decide to visit some iconic as well as biodynamic wineries, choosing a few select eateries along the way to soak up the juices.
As most cellar doors do not open until 10am, we often had a relaxed start to the day with coffee and pastries or fruit toast for breakfast at places such as Linke’s Bakehouse & Pantry or Fleur Social, a florist come café in Nuriootpa. Two interesting food-related stops should be the Barossa Valley Cheese Company in Angaston and the Barossa Valley Chocolate Company in Tanunda. There are plenty of dinner options in towns like Tanunda and Nuriootpa, or you can pick up ingredients for your own platter at outlets along your journey.
Chateau Tanunda is the birthplace of Barossa’s wine industry, with the region’s first vines planted here in 1840. It is also home to Australia’s largest chateau. With its imposing 20-metre central tower, croquet lawn and cricket oval, Chateau Tanunda is worth looking at even before you begin your tastings. Built in 1890, Chateau Tanunda is one of Australia’s most historically significant wineries, banding hundreds of growers together to secure exports to Europe, where phylloxera had devastated the wine industry in the 1870s. Chateau Tanunda is a great place to try old vine wines, their Old Vine Expressions range showing complexity, finesse and depth of flavour.
Langmeil Winery in Tanunda boasts the oldest shiraz vineyard in the world, from which Langmeil’s iconic The Freedom 1843 Shiraz is made. Though the first winery here was founded in 1932, the charming and historic Langmeil was re-established in 1996, the grounds and original buildings restored, including the original ironstone cobbler’s shop that is now The Freedom Cellar. Langmeil produces an easy-drinking Sparkling Shiraz, medium-bodied GSM, and bold Shiraz wines. The Freedom Experience, including a three-hour tour of the vineyard with a tasting of old vine wines in the Freedom Cellar, is the ultimate wine experience at Langmeil.
There are not many places where you can try tawny port from your birth year directly from the barrel, but you can at Seppeltsfield. Founded in 1851, Seppeltsfield has the longest unbroken collection of vintage tawny port dating back to 1878. On approaching the winery, note the spectacular western entrance, the Avenue of Palms, a five-kilometre trail of Canary Island date palms planted by Seppeltsfield workers during the Great Depression. More like a village than a winery, Seppeltsfield contains a fine dining restaurant, an art and design gallery, a cooperage and a cellar door offering a wide range of tasting experiences.
After visiting two wineries in the morning, we love to relax with lunch at a winery, soaking up the view of sprawling landscapes and vineyards. Harvest, at Jacob’s Creek Winery in Rowland Flat, proves to be a highlight of our Barossa experience. Co-located beside the Jacob’s Creek cellar door, it’s an environmentally designed light-filled space with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out at the surrounding landscape.
Harvest’s excellent menu features regional produce, its inventive Middle Eastern dishes complemented by a wine list featuring standout Jacob’s Creek wines. Dating from 1847, Jacob’s Creek is the oldest commercial winery in the region. It is also one of the largest-selling and most successful wine brands in the world, producing wines across a range of price brackets. Their cellar door experience includes tastings of exclusive limited release wines, ‘immersive’ wine experiences and the sale of boxed sets.
Another lunch spot not to be missed is The Eatery by Maggie Beer at Nurioopta. We’re great fans of Maggie Beer, one of a handful of women who turned the focus of Australia’s dining to simple, local and seasonal produce. More recently, her commitment to food quality in aged care is revolutionary. So, it’s a must to visit her Farm Shop, replete with the kitchen where The Cook and The Chef was filmed. Set alongside a creek, the restaurant produces excellent rustic food, their produce sourced from The Pheasant Farm, the Barossa Valley and the best produce South Australia has to offer.
With stomachs full, we visit Yalumba, one of the only major Barossa wineries still under family ownership. Established by the Hill-Smith family in 1849, Yalumba produces a range of wines from popular sparkling wines to exceptional red wines. Besides the clocktower and beautiful grounds, of particular interest is the on-site cooperage, which makes wine barrels and casks, one of only five operational cooperages in the world.
Penfolds, St Hallett, Orlando, Wolf Blass, Elderton, Peter Lehmann and Saltram all deserve a visit, but how much time have we got? In the eastern Barossa is Henschke, where the Henschke family (now the sixth generation) have been making wine for more than 150 years. Their velvety Hill of Grace Shiraz is second only to Penfolds Grange on most people’s ‘must do’ wine lists. You can taste it (for a price) in the Hill of Grace Experience.
Our last two wineries are certainly not the oldest, nor do they have the most polished cellar doors, however they both have distinctive qualities that make them worth visiting.
Had we not known about Kalleske wine, we might easily have missed their charming Greenock cellar door, where we enjoy a personalised tasting. The Kalleske winery was established in 2002 by winemaker Troy Kalleske and his brother Tony, after seven generations of their family had farmed and grown grapes on their Barossa property since 1853. In 1998 the Kalleske property was certified Organic and Biodynamic. With sustainability and careful environmental practices at the core of their farming, grape growing and winemaking, Kalleske’s organic wines hold a lot of appeal to consumers. Despite Kalleske’s relatively brief winemaking history, Troy Kalleske has received many national and international awards for his wine and winemaking.
Rockford is one of the prettiest and most atmospheric wineries we have ever seen. Situated within an old dairy, the boutique winery is housed in an intimately small compound of 1850s farm buildings, surrounded by ivy-covered freestone walls, yet its winery was only founded in 1971, its first vintage released in 1984. The winery’s cosy tasting room is in an historical cottage, the ceiling beams above supported by barrels of fortified wine. Tastings are free, and at peak times the queues are long, so be prepared to wait, because it’s worth it. There’s plenty of action to catch our eye as we wait. Visiting during harvest time (March), we witness the winery’s commitment to traditional winemaking techniques, a truckload of grapes being unloaded by hand with a pitchfork, ready to go into the basket press. Perhaps they will soon become bottles of the famous Rockford Basket Press Shiraz, a worldwide known wine.
There’s something for everyone at the Barossa. Whether you have a weekend or a week to spend, choose your activities according to your interests, plan a route, enjoy your stay, and prepare yourself for a return trip another time.