South Australia, the Wine Haven.

View my Adelaide trip photos here


Just spent the weekend down south and had a wonderful time. It all started from a mission surprise for Pete between me and Dave. I've booked the tickets long time ago while Virgin Blue having the cheap airfare offers. Pete didn't know a thing till we arrived at the airport and find out we heading to Adelaide for a 3 days trip. We flew out last Friday and just got back last night, a nice short trip just do what we do best, relaxing and wine tasting and all.

Adelaide, the city of churches, which claimed to be a boring little town, but that's a totally bullshit. The city itself is quite happening, nice city, small but neat, what makes this little city a gem from the south is the surrounding vineyards. It's only 50km away, the wine connoisseurs' heaven, Barossa Valley, where most of the good wine come from. Just another hour drive down south, McClaren Vale is another best wine hideouts. We spent 2 days driving around the vineyards, visiting wineries, wine tasting can almost easily become our day jobs. Not that any of us are expert in wine, but we were easily getting the hang of the 3 basic steps, swirl, smell and taste and initially we did have an idea what we like and what we don't.

A few wineries that we visited tickle our fancy, either the wine itself or the service, they do deserve a plug here. So let's do a Sideways. Two Hands at Barossa is an excellent choice, either the service or the wine itself. It is a small boutique winery, served by the winemaker herself whom was really helpful and gave us lots of insights about winemaking. Next one got my thumbs up is Chapel Hill, nice wine, great atmosphere by turning an old Chapel into a wine tasting room. They even have a guesthouse where you can attend the cooking class and special wine only made for the guesthouse guests. Grant Burge's Tawny is the best of the best. It won the Best Tawny of the world, judged in Portugal, the only tawny outside Portugal that won the award since 40 years ago. You can't go wrong if it's claimed to be the best of the world. The other two wineries that we think worth a mention is Turkey Flat and d'Arenberg. Turkey Flat, even though some of their wine are sold out, and we didn't fancy their Sparkling Shiraz, but I did enjoy the wine tasting experience inside an old cottage. d'Arenberg, a well known winemaker does know his wine, it was a crowd when we were there, but Pete did manage to pick up another Tawny. The 12 bottles on wine made the journey home awkwardly interesting by having to carrying them onto plane. I wasn't worry much of the wine, but more of a guy onboard who was suffering Aviophobia (fear of flying). They put him right at the front row next to the exit door, he couldn't sit still, keep rubbing his own legs the whole time, walking the aisle up and down, chewing his Mintos he bought onboard. I was so worried he might panic suddenly and open the exit door and jump out in mid air. Thank god he didn't.