In case you missed Part I click
here to catch up! After a goodnight's sleep we cooked up some breakfast using fresh ingredients provided by the lodge, making sure to adequately line our stomachs in preparation for a day of wine tasting. The luminous yellow light that swept through our room helped wake us up—that and a strong cup of coffee.
A knock on the door at 11:30 and we were off in a chauffeured car to the first winery of the day. For $40 bucks an hour I hired a car driven by a refreshingly earthy woman who would take us where ever we wanted to go throughout the day. I certainly recommend doing this for a few hours should you ever find yourself in Clare.
First stop was
Jim Barry, one of the more well-known wineries in Clare.
We met Ben, a 20-something wine buff, at the cellar door who started us off on our tasting. We tasted a couple of rieslings, including Lavender Hill, which I did not like. It's Jim Barry's sweet take on riesling, and its syrup-like texture just doesn't do it for me personally. My favourite was The Florita, the 2008 vintage, which is named after the seventy-five acre block of the same name. Aged a few years already, The Florita is a beautiful example of an Australian dry riesling. We bought half a case and plan to age most of them quite a few more years to further bring out the toasty flavour I adore. We also purchased a bottle of the The McRae Wood 1999 vintage, a full-bodied shiraz with notes of blueberry and menthol. Peter and I will probably open it soon.
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| View from the tasting room out to Jim Barry's Lodge Hill vineyard |
After Jim Barry we went to
Knappstein, another popular winery in the Clare. It's also a micro-brewery. In fact, Knappstein's Bavarian-style lager is one of my favourite beers.
The original brewery, called Clare Brewery, started up in 1878, the same time the building that houses the tasting room was erected. It wasn't until the 1960s that Knappstein began producing wines.
My favourite part of this tasting was when I was introduced to sparkling riesling. With the Clare Valley's prolific production of riesling it would have been silly not to experiment with making it bubbly. As a lover of sparkling styles and of riesling, I enjoyed it immensely. Little did I know I would be meeting more drops of the stuff along the wine trail.
Other standouts were the 2010 Ackland Watervale Riesling, with its grapes coming from a single, circa 1969, vineyard, and the 2011 Rosé made with sangiovese and cabernet sauvignon.
We finished up at Knappstein and drove just under 15 kilometers south, where we arrived in Polish Hill, a sub-region of the Clare Valley. The grapes in Clare are grown either here or in another sub-region called Watervale.
We had made it to our third winery,
Pikes.
Fortunately for us, this was one of our favourite cellar door experiences during our stay. Unfortunately for you this means I was so enjoying chatting with the knowledgeable and friendly cellar door oenophile that I failed to snap any photos. Ugh.
Pikes Wines is as old as me (I'll leave it up to you to find out how many years that is) and produces a number of varietals that are rare in the Clare Valley, including viognier and savignin. The latter was caught up in a case of mistaken identity back in 2009 when, after DNA testing, Pikes and a number of other Australian wine makers discovered that what they thought were albarino grapes planted in their vineyards—a grape varietal from northwest Spain—were actually savignin grapes, from eastern France. Pikes laughed it off and slapped a fitting name on the bottles:
'Impostores' Savignan.
After bidding farewell to our cellar door friend, we jumped back in the car and headed to Skillogalee for a late lunch. The timing couldn't have been more perfect given the amount of wine I had tasted by this point, and, despite pouring most of the wine into buckets (even the ones I liked), I was feeling a pleasant wine buzz which was likely to evolve into something else had I failed to get some sustenance in me.
Any visit to Clare Valley has to include a meal at Skillogalee winery and restaurant. The food is delicious and the surroundings are simply breathtaking. Be sure to reserve a seat outside, preferably under the enormous olive tree.
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| Peter looking perfectly content |
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| Under the olive tree |
Before settling on what to eat we tasted a selection of Skillogallee wines with the intention of pairing our food with something we like.
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| Another sparkling riesling on the right |
After deciding on a gewürztraminer, something I never usually order but found this one to be quite dry and nicely complex, we sat back down at our table to take in the view and order. The setting is so picturesque here I couldn't help but take a whole heap of photos.
Love the old building
After lunch we got back down to business with one last winery,
Kilikanoon. Driving between wineries was an experience in itself, with an impressive collection of native plants and trees passing us out the window.
Kilikanoon, a heavily awarded winery, produces more reds than whites. Most of its 300 hectares of vineyards are in the Clare Valley, the rest are spread out around the Barossa and Adelaide regions.
The 2011 Mort's Block Watervale Riesling was one of the best rieslings I had tasted all day. Again, it would do well cellaring for a few years, if not longer, but it was smooth, citrusy and extremely crisp—perfect with a slice of salty gruyere on a warm summer day. As for the red wines, I enjoyed the 2009 Prodigal Grenache, the 2008 'Medley' of grenache, shiraz and mourvedre and the 2009 Block's Road Cabernet Sauvignon, all of which, I was told, would do well with a good decant or more years in the bottle.
After our last taste of the day, a luscious dessert wine made from (yep, you guessed it) riesling, we ended the day back at the lodge with a selection of cheeses, cured meats and salads. (Although I probably should have gone for a jog instead.)
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| Sevenhill Cellars |
We checked out of Brice Hill Lodge the following morning and drove back down to Adelaide, but not without stopping at a couple more wineries along the way. One of them was Sevenhill Cellars, the oldest winery in Clare Valley. The vineyard was established by Jesuits in 1851 to produce sacramental wine, which continues today. It's the last remaining Jesuit-owned winery in Australia. The grounds, which are home to the winery, museum and church, are beautifully maintained.
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Tasting room entrance
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After Sevenhill we made one more stop before heading out of town. We were feeling quite peckish and decided to grab a bite at The Little Red Grape, a cafe and boutique a number of people in the Clare Valley had recommended. We shared a delicious plate of local foods including olives, kangaroo, quail, sliced apple and sourdough. Everything was delicious and made for a perfect end to our holiday in the wine country.
Would I return? Absolutely. The Clare Valley wine region is refreshingly unpretentious and genuinely welcoming. And hey, there aren't many pubs you walk into and find a table of scruffy blokes sharing a couple bottles of a nice red.
