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Published: March 9th 2006
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Barossa Vale Cellar Door staff
Kelly and Kim (and their Nana, Val) Hi All
This is the second effort at the Barossa news-first journal disappeared into the great computer in the sky after nearly an hour of typing. Not happy Jan! Will save more regularly this time. Consequently I will keep this one a bit shorter and just run through the ten days in the Barossa. We stayed in the driveway of friends Anne and Rob Gibson at Light Pass just outside of Nuriootpa. Very convenient as they have their own winery and cellar door sales on the other side of the house. Arrived on Friday 24th to an absolute downpour and got rather damp setting up camp so had a quiet night at the pub and John found someone else to play golf with on Saturday. Luckily Saturday dawned bright and warm for golf and also for Baqrossa under the Stars. The Gibsons were already working there selling wines so John and I were only too happy to go along. Michael Crawford was the attraction and it was a great concert. He has a wonderful voice and of course a great sense of humour. Frank Spencer only made a couple of appearances but was hilarious. Sunday was a quiet day for us
The Gibson Toy Boys
Adam, Joey and Abel all but made it up to the lookout at Menglers Hill for sunset and a bottle of Gibson's sparkling merlot - yummee. Great view over the valley too. I was suffering with a good dose of hay fever so spent a quiet day on the Monday as well, just did some driving around looking for someone to repair our jockey wheel and install the CB radio. Tuesday gave us the opportunity to pick some semillon grapes by hand. We knew it was vintage so were really keen to experience any part of it we could. Luckily it wasn't too hot a day so quite enjoyed the hour or so and it was good to start the experience from the bottom!!!
Tuesday and Wednesday we did some chores and quite a bit of driving around the Barossa just soaking up the history and sightseeing. It's very easy driving and plenty of places to stop and have coffee and lunch and so on. Visitied the little town of Freeling where the Railway Hotel has been renamed the Gungallen Hotel and is used in the filming of McLeods Daughters. The series is of course shot around this area but couldn't find the
Lunch at Maggie Beer's
John and Rob - what a setting! house. You can pay to do a tour if you want but you can't go into the house. Thursday we went to Maggie Beer's lakeside restaurant for lunch. Was really looking forward to this and Rob met us there with a bottle of wine in hand for a quiet lunch. The setting is lovely - on a man made lake/pond with the pheasant farm, orchard and vineyard all around. The farm shop is also here and all Maggie's products are available. Bought quite a bit of stuff including verjuice which I had seen in DJ's but didn't know how to use. (Great for deglazing!) There was a cooking demo in the adjoining kitchen that the ABC has built for filming the show on Wednesday? nights so check out the picture that I will try to put here. Went from there to see some grapes being crushed at Peter Lehman's. Called into the famous weighbridge there and met Ian Nash who John had played golf with on previous Saturday! We were starting to feel like locals at this stage.
Friday we had a wonderful walk around Nuriootpa whist CB was being installed. They have a really wonderful bush garden that
Maggie Beer's kitchen
Jo pretending she can cook. (See how long my hair is?) has huge community input. Gave us a chance to see some lovely Australian native flora and came away quite convinced we could have a bush garden next time. Spent Friday night at the Allendale pub which is about 40 mins north of Nuriootpa and that is about all there is in the town. It was a delightful place - think the size of the Daly Waters and Barrow Creek pubs in the NT but with a hell of a lot more class. It's hard to describe but quite rustically modern and quirky. Various small dining rooms for two, to a lot more - all white linen table cloths and great art. Low ceilings, white washed stone walls and quite a bit of new galvanized iron used in the front bar. We had dinner and more wine (Gibson's Barossa Vale of course) and really enjoyed being off the tourist trail.
Saturday was just another day in paradise and set off early for the Barossa Farmers' Market. Lovely fresh produce, cheeses, olive oil, pastries, breads, beef, chicken and so much more. It's only open for a few hours on a Saturday so you have to be there early. Anne and Rob
Canoeing on the Murray
You will have to take my word that this is John and Rob. go most Saturdays and meet up with a lot of locals. Once again, not a huge number of visitors so a great feeling around the place. Bought enough for a picnic and spent Saturday afternoon driving to Swan Reach on the Murray for a swim. It was a hot day so the river was really inviting. John and Rob took the canoe out for a run while Anne and I supervised from the banks. After a beautiful afternoon had a drink at the pub at sunset and drove home feeling well pleased with life in general. Anne and Rob had to go to a christening in Adelaide on Sunday so we went out for lunch to the Kabminkye winery. Their claim to fame (apart from making wine) is their cellar door building is super modern. Apparently caused a stir in the valley because of it's design not being in keeping with everything else but we both liked it. There are walls of glass so it was like having lunch in the middle of a paddock. The food was slow cooked Barossa traditional which you don't expect in such a modern setting but was absolutely to die for. That night Rob
Anne and Rob
Under the Barossa night sky again! took us out to see some mechanical harvesting of sauvignon blanc grapes - much easier to do than hand picking and quite incredible to watch. The machine literally shakes the grapes from the vine and just leaves the stripped bunch attached to the vine.
During our stay we didn't go wine tasting much. It was a waste of time when we didn't have room to carry much and we wanted to take some Barossa Vale product with us. We did visit some cellar doors though just to have a look and a sip. Jacobs Creek was very big, very modern and in a lovely setting. Peter Lehman was quite traditional with beautiful grounds. Wolf Blass was very modern and stark - not to my taste at all.
We did so much in the Barossa that you can't put it all down. The best part was catching up with the Gibson's. They were really generous with their time considering this is the busiest time of the year for them. Rob shared so much info with us about wine making and the wine producing business in general and John has made so many notes in his diary about yields and so on that he will bore you all with his knowledge when we get back. It was also lovely catching up with their kids who all work in the business. Will put a shot of me in with the Gibson Toy Boys (Anne's son Adam and Rob's son Abel), who along with Anne's daughters Kelly and Kim, were so welcoming and informative. We had a lot of fun with them all. We spent most nights with Anne and Rob sitting outside under a beautiful Barossa night sky drinking some great wines and catching up with each others' lives. Doubt if we will stay so long at someone's home again - makes it too hard to leave!! When you start looking in real estate windows you know it is time to leave. But alas we did have to go and set off on Monday 6th for the Eyre Peninsula. More later.
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Anne Back
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Hi from Carssy
Hi guys We're really lovin' your updates, sounds like a wonderful trip and certainly everything and more that you have been planning for so long!! We took Lexie Lexus for a run to Kiama last weekend - she wanted to keep going to Gerroa but we rounded her up!! Went for a walk this week Jo, just the once, just to keep an eye on things. We're going to Il Divo at the State theatre tonite then I'm on a girls weekend tomorrow with Mairead and about 6 others. We;re going to Briars at Bowral and come back on Monday. Plenty of talk, laughter, wine and food - not necessarily in that order either!! Gotta go, continue having fun, stay safe Anne and Trev xxxx PS Jo did you get the email I sent you in Feb???