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Published: March 13th 2007
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Jacobs Creek
Sampling all they had to offer It took us about 90 minutes to get to Tanunda in Barossa Valley (you can probably do it in less, but we didn't have a very good map and you can't rely on Aussie road signs). Our home for the night was Tanunda Caravan & Tourist park staying in a cabin, which was very reasonably priced. We decided it was a good idea to have a spot of lunch before going to taste the wines at each vineyard (especially as Jason doesn't drink that often, so wine usually goes straight to his head).
We then hired a couple of bikes, so that Jason didn't have to drive the car (which would have been really dangerous, he either would have killed someone or completely written it off after a few glasses of wine). I was a bit nervous about riding the bike down a major road, as I have riden a bike for some years. Not that it was really busy, but there were quite a few big lorries passing me. Jason zoomed off ahead, lying in wait with the camera. We finally arrived at Jacobs Creek winery. We were definitely ready for a few samples of wine after the ride.
It was a very hot day.
We started off with a Reserve sparkling white that you can't get in the UK. It was very nice, better than the normal sparkling wine. We quickly discovered that we had expensive taste as we preferred their 'Reserve' range, which is an older vintage. We then moved onto the reds and found that they did a quite nice Merlot, but we were not converted from our white wine. After sampling about nine wines, we decided to hit the road and move onto the next winery (which conveniently was the next turn off); Grant Burge (which we had never heard of before, but do sell to the UK).
The lady serving us at Grant Burge was very knowledgeable and gave us a lot more information than Jacobs Creek. We tried a new grape to us - Voigner. They have been producing this grape in Oz for about 10 years but have not exported it to the UK as they work on refining the flavour. It had an apricot taste to it, which was very unusual, we really liked it. We also tried a number of reds, all of which we really liked. We
discovered that we should be drinking older vintage reds (2000 or older) as they taste a lot smoother than 2004+. Jason was pleasantly surprised (or maybe he was a bit tipsy by this stage) and decided he liked all the reds. We also tried our first sparkling red, which was very refreshing, but unfortunately you cannot get a sparkling red in the UK yet, but I bet it won't be long until they export one.
We decided to ride a bit further and try another winery, St Hallett. However, none of the wines here were really to our taste as they were mainly red and 2003+. However, whilst I was spitting mine out or tipping the rest into the spitoon, Jason gulped his down not wishing to waste any!!! Needless to say, that after the sun, cycling and visiting this winery, and sampling I don't know how many wines, we were really drunk. My cycling skills suddenly took a new dimension and I was peddling much faster, even brave enough to change gears, my fear of crashing into the cars seemed to have vanished. Jason was unable to cycle in a straight line and had a smile permanently plastered
After sampling the wines #1
It's the cycling and the heat! Nothing to do with all those wines. on his face. I'm not sure if that was drink induced or from the G-forces he was pulling from the speed he was travelling. We tried to get to another winery before they shut at 5:00pm, but just missed the deadline so headed off back to the cabin.
Now this is when I realised just how drunk Jason was and grabbed the camera quick to take photographic evidence. On arriving back in the cabin, he collapsed on the bed and then was laughing hysterically to himself. After a while he began to feel thirsty so tried to drink some water from a bottle but managed to miss his mouth and pour it all down himself (can you tell he wasn't very pleased that I managed to capture this on camera?!). He then tried to turn on the air-conditioning unit in the cabin, but nearly destroyed the thing before falling asleep for an hour.
I am really gutted that we didn't spend longer than one night in Barossa, as there are so many wineries to try, especially in the Tanunda area. In hindsight, I wished that we had spent one night less in Adelaide and then maybe we would
have been able to sample the much recommended Two Hands winery. This is definitely an area that I would put on my agenda for our next visit. I would highly recommend it to any wine lover, it gives you the chance to taste wines that are only sold at the cellar door, is very informative and lots of fun by bike! Also, there is no pressure to actually buy - the lady in Grant Burge was positively encouraging us to try more, with seemingly little expectation of us actually buying any. We'll be sure to repay her hospitality by looking out for Grant Burge wines in the UK.
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