A Great Day (plus a bit)

We arrived at Adelaide airport off a none too pleasant Quantas flight, a packed 737, late off the ground, bumpy off the ground, bumpy on landing and over zealous cabin attendants. However, our bags were pretty quick, the car hire office found easily, a second clerk materializes out of thin air so no wait and to cap it all an upgrade. The drive out to Barossa was straight forward and although our final destination, Abbotsford Country House, was up dirt roads, and it had turned dark, we had absolutely no problem in finding it. Great instructions.

A cheese and meat platter awaited after we had been introduced to a very spacious room in one of two custom built annexes for guests. The repas was served over in the main homestead in a delightful and enormous living room which must be 150sq metres in size and is pretty much only for the use of guests. We were asked if we wanted to take a bottle of wine with the meal and with the help of Julian Mawl chief assistant to his wife, Jane, the guiding light to the guest house side of the Mawl family fortunes, we chose a Yalumba 2006 Shiraz. Great choice! The Yalumba was a real Barossa wine. Deep dark crimson, bags of fruit and very smooth for a two year old wine. It complemented the cheese and meat plate wonderfully.

The only sour note was that Julian had major problems with his wi-fi and it was unavailable. However, if we needed to get to our e-mails then we could do it at the local library for free. While that did not help much with my blogging exploits it would at least mean I could communicate.

After a very comfortable nights sleep, I actually did not get up until past 8:30am, we went across for breakfast to an enormous kitchen where Jane was preparing breakfast for another English couple. They were tucking in to a very English breakfast and we were not slow in joining them.

Chris and Patty were from the Isle of Man and were out visiting their daughter and were taking a couple of days off to renew acquaintances with Barossa wine. He had been an International Banker and we swapped wine inspired travel and work experiences interspersed with conversations about where we might go and what we should plan to see, all aided and abetted by Jane.

Our new found friends soon left and we quickly followed. As the wi-fi still did not work we went down to Lyndoch and found the library where I was able to do my e-mail and also to finally get my post on our Rainbows End wine tasting of over a week ago actually on to the blog.

Leaving Lyndoch we decided to first visit Bethany wines in Bethany. Bethany wine was the first Australian wine that I had knowingly drunk. I loved it and bought quite a lot more over the years. Wonderfully sited just above the old German village of Bethany with commanding views over the Barossa, the wine tasting takes place in a down to earth building exactly right for tasting and not connected to the actual winery itself. I did a tasting of several wines, all reds except for the one Riesling desert wine. Actually, I was a bit disappointed and all the wines and with exception of the Riesling which just tasted sweet to me , they all tasted sharp and lacking in fruit. I began to suspect it was me rather than the wine. Do not get me wrong they were good wines but just not as good as I was expecting.

We decided to move on from Bethany to Henschke wines. This is the winery that is famous for the iconic Hill of Grace wine. Bethaney had not let me taste their top three reserve wines so I figured my chances of sampling Hill of Grace were slim to none. Nevertheless we decided that it was worth the trip, we could but ask!

Henschke wines is really outside the Barossa but I guess that they are so famous that Barossa is pleased to include them in the Barossa wine maps. They sit out there by themselves in the hills and the ride to get there is beautiful, much of it over and through the hills on dirt roads. We stopped a couple of times to take in the views or stop to look at the animals. Eventually we arrived at what is a nice, clearly prosperous winery but all understated.

We alighted and quickly found our way to the tasting room which turned out to be right next door to the open fermentation vats and the other storage vats. Marion was not tasting to day so wandered of round the grounds as she had done at Bethaney. I was the only punter in the tasting room. I was quickly given a wine card and was asked what I wanted to taste. What a question! “ I would like to taste the one you won’t let me taste” I lightly rejoined. “How do you know what we will let you taste. You never know! Now what is it you would like to taste”, “Hill of Grace of course, is that possible?” “We will see” and she disappeared. I heard a muted conversation in the back office and what I took for the senior wine tasting person, a lady called Sussana, appeared and said she understood I wanted to taste the Hill of Grace. Where did I want to start. I said that I wasn’t so interested in either the whites or the fun reds but I was keen to taste the serious reds. It was then that I saw a pinot noir and thought it to be so out of place in the home of the iconic Hill of Grace. I said lets start with that out of interest and then go to the serious reds, five wines in all.

You can read about the wines in my tasting posts when I produce them. Suffice it to say that the pinot was really a fun wine but the four serious wines were super. Starting with Euphonium, then the Growers Shiraz, then Mount Eddlestone and then holy of holys the Hill of Grace. Wonderful, Wonderful, Wonderful. The fruit both in the nose and to the taste of both the last two was fabulous and there was a special perfume to the Hill of Grace which was sublime. This from 100 year old grapes for the first and 150 year old grapes for the Hill of Grace itself. What a day it was turning into.

We then decided to have an afternoon tea in Angaston a local Barossa town, but we would go by the actual Hill of Grace vines. A short journey found us in front of the small church which stands at the bottom of the Hill of Grace vines. These were 150 year old vines all by themselves and not with any other vines anywhere near them. Not a big area, it looked like 5 or 6 acres to me but I expect that information is available somewhere else. All the vines had straw piled around them to help preserve as much water as possible. The Barossa does have a problem with water from time to time and where the Hill of Grace is located even more so. This year is particularly bad around the Hill of Grace location and indeed where most of the Henschke wines from, We took our pictures and then left.

When we got to Angaston we discovered a little sort of deli café and ordered tea and cakes and then as we ate and drank them I availed myself of the public internet PC that the café owner had installed for the townsfolk’s use. Something about helping drag them into the 21st century. I caught up on my e-mails.
The deli owner turned out to be a real character and gave us a really good update on the history of the town. After telling us about the history of his building and those other buildings we could see around us, he also told us of a couple of buildings we should visit and then mentioned an old cemetery which was about 100m from where we were standing. He said that was worth a visit as indeed it was.

The plaque in front of the cemetery had a list of all who were buried there. There were some 223 people that had been laid to rest there between 1843 and 1869. Over 60% of them were children. We could only count 6 people who had reached an age greater than that of ourselves. It was sobering to think that it was highly unlikely that anyone buried there had seen their ruby wedding anniversary. How things have moved on. We should be thankful for small mercies.

We returned to Abbotsford. We prevailed upon the Maul’s to suggest a restaurant for us. They suggested “Tonic” a restaurant that was part of a motel. We were just a tad concerned but they reassured us that the food was good and it had the merit of being close by. They were right. We had a really good meal, complimented by 2006 Cimicky Shiraz which turned out be really good. We met the chef ,a lady, who with her husband and two others had recently bought the property from its long time owner. Apparently, there is much to do and the property comes with a 15 acre rose garden which I am absolutely certain Marion will visit before we leave. A port was offered and accepted and the chef Kas and her daughter in law, the waitress, stood and told us tales of the Barossa and its wines.

On returning to Abbotsford I needed to at least get something productive done on the blogging and photo recording front. Switched on my PC and “voila” the wi-fi is working. I was able to catch up on lots of things including make some necessary calls back to UK using Skype. In the spirit of the day there was some good news related to unfinished business back there.

After the calls I managed a little blogging and a long conversation with Julian Mawl on wine and in particular S. Australian wine for which he seemed to have a pretty encyclopaedic knowledge. We discussed the Hill of Grace tasting and he remarked we were the first non press customer who had stayed with them in six years who had had such a tasting.

Off to bed, it had been a great day.