Although not as wet as the east coast of the country, it did rain a considerable amount in Clare last night. It was not torrential, but was certainly constant and saw the creeks filling up. Apparently this is pretty good timing for the grapes to accelerate new growth after winter.
The rain was probably going hang around to some extent for most of the day, so we started by visiting an Art Gallery that hosts indigenous artists from Central Australia to produce the works on site. There were some beautifully detailed paintings sharing their stories. The gallery proprietor has been working with these artists for the last 30 years and clearly has a great eye for talent.
We planned to visit a few more wineries today and the first on the list was Skillogallee, which was one of the first Clare Valley wineries to open a restaurant in addition to their cellar door in 1970. Additionally, they only use grapes grown on their own estate rather than using grapes from other regions. The grapes are grown along the contours of the hills and some vintages are exclusive to a particular contour, should they be considered good enough by the winemaker.
We were able to taste all the wines on offer and our tasting guide imparted a lot of information about all the wines. There wasn’t much we didn’t like right across their range, which meant some hard decisions were necessary. When I lived in Adelaide in the 1990s people often raved about this winery, but I never had the time to come nor the money to buy the wine here, so it was nice to have finally ticked that off.
One of the things you realise about the Clare Valley Wine region is that the name of Jim Barry keeps coming up. Our next stop was Good Catholic Girl wines which is run by Jim’s eldest daughter. She was provided a hectare of land on Jim’s Armagh vineyard to grow her own grapes and after Jim died in 2004 has forged her own path.
The winery is a wonderfully irreverent tribute to all things Catholic, right down to the Gregorian versions of contemporary music playing in the background. The wines mostly have a biblical link in their names and there is lots of paraphernalia placed around the room. Notwithstanding all of this, the wines are excellent and fairly well priced.
Our research had revealed that there was very little open in the way of good food on a Sunday night in Clare, so we decided that our big meal of the day would be at the Sevenhill Hotel. This hotel recently won an award for the best hotel food in regional South Australia and had been recommended by a number of people at the wineries. Deb had a kangaroo fillet, I had steak (surprisingly with pepper sauce). Some say it is good to be predictable.
After lunch, we’d decided to take a rest from the wineries and head to the historical town of Mintaro which was established in 1849 as a stopping place for bullock teams carting copper from Burra. It is also the home of Martindale House, the location for the filming of the movie ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’. Unfortunately we couldn’t get there because of some minor flooding. We’ll try again tomorrow if the rain stops. Today, we were still able to find a few other photography targets including the oldest Jesuit Church in Australia.
We decided one more winery on our way home was appropriate, so picked the Paulett Winery. This is a much more commercial operation than either of this morning’s stops. You got to choose from a possible 19 different wines to sample that ranged from new releases to some very pricey ‘Reserve Releases’. $120 for a bottle of wine scares me.
Tonight’s dinner is a platter inside the apartment – just as well because it’s not yet stopped raining.
Until tomorrow!
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