At risk of being repetitive is was still a bit wet here this morning, but mainly nuisance drizzle rather than any of the substantial rain of a few days ago. There are about 150 wineries here in the Barossa Valley and about 80 cellar doors, so clearly we were going to need to be selective. We are keen to skip the big commercial cellar doors and concentrate on wines that are bit harder to find and definitely not on the Dan Murphy’s emails I constantly receive. There is an Information Centre not far up the road so we got some tips from them before setting out.
Our first stop was Langmeil Wines in Tanunda. Some of the shiraz grape vines they use for their wines were initially planted in 1847 are possibly the oldest continuously cultivated shiraz vines in the world. The property has had numerous owners in that time from the original german families escaping religious persecution in the 1840s to the Lindner family who purchased the property in 1996 and set to restoring the run down property. They have also acquired other ‘old vine’ plots around the Barossa and Eden Valley. They now produce a great range of red wines which we prudently sampled and of course organised sending some home.
Our next stop was the the David Franz winery, which is well-known for their adventurous attitude to wine production. While almost next door to Langmeil, the adventurous spirit did not extend to me driving my Jeep rental over a flooded causeway, so we went the long way around.
David Franz is the son of renowned Barossa winemaker Peter Lehmann and he learnt about wine working for his father after returning from an extended overseas odyssey. He likes to challenge the norm and has some interesting ‘drinks’ on offer, including a Grape and Apple Scrumpy Cider. Again the wines are excellent and some will be making their way home.
Tuesday and Wednesday in the Barossa are down days when many of the restaurants and cellar doors don’t open, so we sought some advice from the David Franz team who recommended Vintners Bar and Bistro for lunch. Interestingly a couple of the tables were filled by some of the more unremarkable people from yesterday’s lunch, further illustrating the shortage of venues on a Tuesday. As has become the expectation on this section of the trip another great meal was had.
Following lunch we decided to go to Angaston, about 6 minutes away to capture some more of Deb’s churches. Its history dates back to the 1840s when many German families immigrated and took up small leases and established vineyards. Angaston is also home to a large bottling and distribution plant that is used by many wineries in the Barossa. You will notice on many wine bottles ‘Bottled in Angaston’ which provides the wineries great economies of scale. I do suspect though, that as the ownership of wineries becomes more dominated by large corporations they may well establish their own facilities.
Our last cellar door stop was the Elderton Winery, but not only for their excellent wines. We had visited this 25 years ago and met their friendly ginger winery cat called Arthur. He also appears in the book ‘Winery Cats’ that sits on our coffee table at home. Of course he is no longer with us and the Elderton Cellar Door has moved into more opulent premises, but they do have a new winery cat called ‘Tigerpuss’.
We then headed back to our lodgings at Tanunda via the Maggie Beer Farm Shop and picked up some more goodies for yet another snack platter.
Until tomorrow!
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