Ooo, which port shall I choose?

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Mmm, smell that port! I'm stood in a big shed full of litres and litres of 10 years aged port, and the smell is amazing! We're partway through a historic tour of the Seppelt Winery (founded in the 1800s) and this is a great all-round sensory experience!

Karen and I ensured we were on the road by 10, and headed for the Barossa. Karen's not driven round here too much and we don't have a map, but as family lives round here she's got a vague idea! Some beautiful sweeping scenery, acres of corn, and some great cloud formations. We head for Tanunda, but first find ourselves in Nuriootpa (not much thanks to the road signs), where we stop to take a photo of someone's crazy front garden, and stop at the Penfold's winery. Bit of history, couple of tastes later and we're on the road to Tanunda.

Karen's heard that there's an interpretation centre here. We get distracted by the Lutheran Centre and bookshop, then find the centre which is really just basic info, but we find a free map and a list of afternoon winery tours. We decide to head for 'Maggie Beer's', which Karen has heard about. What a great call! There's wine tasting (mmm, get the Tokay, a butterscotchy port), and pate tasting. We get a pate picnic basket, which is delicious, miss the food demonstration unfortunately, but enjoy watching the peacock, lake birds, turtles, etc around us.

We decide we have time for Chateau Dorrien before the Seppelt tour, as it's speciality is ports, and I want one to take for Christmas Day. The white port there and the Tokay at Maggies are definite contenders. We've gone off the idea of cooking so no need for one for tonight - we'll get in the pub! Amazing murals further in the building too. We don't want to miss the 3.30pm tour, so we head off and soon find ourselves driving through palm trees - it was explained these were planted during the depression to keep workers employed (and then the Seppelt Winery was ready to go into full production post-depression, with a trained staff).

Our tour guide had lots of interesting stories about the family, the buildings and the fortunes of the winery (currently just returned to private ownership after being owned by Fosters for a few years). After the port store, we see a corridor lined with aging ports, each barrel named after a family member. As it's so hot, the outside bit has been curtailed and we go into the private meeting room instead, lined with awards and bottles of port (vintage port), and a cased box of 100 year old port... The only winery to produce such a thing - expensive to buy but seems to gain in value pretty quickly! Up into the entrance for our wine tasting session... I try a variety of Tokay, some Muscat and a couple of wines. Get the Grand Tokay - 10 years aged - beautiful!

En route to dinner we go to G.B.A. Parsons lookout - spectacular scenery - but really shows up how dry the land is - the only green areas are the vinyards (closest is Jacob's Creek). Onto the Lord Lyndoch for dinner - another good call by Karen, where try the Chicken Parmigiana (that and schnitzel are the South Australian speciality - so many Germans settled here!), a glass of wine (so many tried today!) before we head back for another round of Super Mario Party.

Still not done any formal wine appreciation, but maybe one day...

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Photos

Juicy Grapes
Photo from http://www.sxc.hu/