We were woken VERY early, 5.00am, by the trucks driving past the motel. It’s obviously the start of the week when the trucks go out from the depot, which is about a mile away, and, since the motel is at a crossroads, there’s lots of braking and gear changing right outside!! Lovely!! No-one warns you of these things or you wouldn’t stay here.
Russ, our driver from Barossa Valley Tours, picked us up at 10.00am
and we joined Ken and Maggie (I know, not another one) from Lancashire for our day out. We started off at a winery about 1km from here, Sawtram’s – winetasting at 10 in the morning is not to be recommended! They do have some very nice wines, to my taste and Tom’s, but we didn’t buy any. So it was on into Angaston village for a guided tour of some of the buildings and a potted history, rather garbled (we’d learnt more from the leaflets we picked up from the tourist office), ending up at the Angas Park Fruit store, where we disembarked for a sales spree. At least, I think that was what was hoped but only I bought one item, so I don’t think his commission would have been very large!
Then it was on to Mengler’s Hill Lookout, where Tom and I had been on Sat evening as the sun set. The views today were very good as it was clear and sunny
and Russ did point out several landmarks we wouldn’t have known about otherwise. No kangaroo today though – too early.
The next stop was into Nuriootpa, to Elderton Wines where we found a few to our liking. We bought a fortified Shiraz for Tom and a Botrytis Semillon for me. The next port of call was Maggie Beer’s Farm Shop
and there was some delicious stuff there – chutneys and pates and wines. Although we didn’t buy anything today (it would have had to sit in the heat of the bus for hours), we will definitely be returning for some of the pates, which are just too mouth-watering. They have an alcohol free wine (if that’s not a contradiction in terms) which you could believe is top quality pink champagne. And a Tokay wine, which is perfect with at least one of the pates. The only trouble with finding all this lovely stuff is our lack of ability to bring it home. Just means we have to eat and drink it all in the next fortnight. Aahh shame.
Lunch was in the Vine Inn in Nuriootpa and very fine it was too, but we didn’t have any wine to go with it – saving ourselves for the afternoon visits. First winery was Chateau Dorrien
between Nuriootpa and Tanunda, another family owned and run business. The couple there were very informative and good fun – they even laughed at a few of Tom’s jokes!! We learned much more about the wine process and there were several wines we liked. They do 6 different ports and 6 types of mead too – not all of which we sampled.
The last vineyard was Grant Burge, west of Tanunda, next door to Jacob’s Creek. Their visitor centre is old and has charm and atmosphere, which we found JC lacked, and some very fine landscaped gardens but they were busy with a few groups of “tasters” so there was less chat. I did buy a good bottle of slightly sparkling moscato, which I shall enjoy with the next two evening meals while Tom samples his Shiraz from Tin Shed.
I think we’re both agreed that our personal visit to the Tin Shed on Sat was a better experience than today on the whole, but we still enjoyed it a lot. And at least Tom got to sample without having to spit out as he wasn’t driving.
Tonight I’ve tried packing what we have to bring home – aaagh! There’s lots and most of it is heavy. We’re going to have to redistribute some of the paper products, and another visit to the Op shop with a bag of bits to get rid of is definitely on the cards!
Tomorrow is our last full day here and we have a few places we’ve yet to visit, so it will be a busy day so I shall wish you all goodnight and sweet dreams.
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