A Winter Escape

Emerging unscathed from first semester exams having sacrificed another birthday to the God of SWOTVAC, Nins and I decided to celebrate with a sneaky two night escape to the winter-wonderland that is the Barossa Valley. Without realising, we struck it lucky from the get go, managing to sneak a last minute reservation at the highly aclaimed and extremely popular fermentAsian in Tanunda. Even on an icy June Wednesday the restaurant was a buzz by the time we arrived mid-evening.

Having heard great things, we embraced the sharing menu philosophy by ordering all but a few dishes. We went to work on the wine list but having spent the past month with my head in the books I was really hoping for some guidance on the expansive 35 page offering. Unfortunately Tuoi Do's partner Grant, fermentAsian's wine guru wasn't around to give personal recommendations but his well documented notes steered us towards a Gerard Boulay Sancerre to go with our initial courses.

A feast for the senses

We started with the betel leaf wraps and a selection of the traditional Hanoi spring rolls and were instantly taken with the freshness and finesse of the flavours (Tuoi Do's parents tend an enviable selection of fresh herbs in the restaurant garden). This was closely followed by the sugar cane prawns, Black Angus beef salad, red duck curry and orange ginger pork belly which were simply excellent. The Sancerre provided a masterfull backdrop for these simple and light asian flavours, with fresh clean fruit, texture and delicate oak meeting in perfect harmony; I'm rapidly developing a long distance love affair with the Loire Valley! Sadly our attempt at a 1996 Rockford Dry Country Grenache was sabotaged by the cork fairy but then again it's a great excuse to go back for another attempt at this and others from the back page vintage list.

'Thousand watt smiles' all round

In a way it was fate because we compensated with a breathtaking Clos Du Bourg Vouvray Sauterne with dessert. This was like nothing I have had in a French sticky before, with its sublimely delicate burst of nectared fruit which just danced around the palate. A great match for the spiced caramel pear with chilli choclote icecream, the sticky rice pudding, the chocolate and lemongrass mousse and the lime brûlée. Tuoi, the charming star of the show somehow escaped the kitchen to welcome new faces and the knowing looks from local diners and staff gave you a sense you'd been let in on a local secret. Not often do you stumble upon a place with a such a welcoming and cheerful ambiance. We'll certainly be back to do it all again soon!

Nosh - Breaky of champions

Waking the next day to a bright blue winter sky we headed to Nosh, our favourite and trusty breakfast spot on the Tanunda main street; fuelling up with the house meusli, bacon and egg panini, freshly squeezed juices and coffee in preparation for a full days tasting.

Nins at Rockfords - A regional standout

We kicked things off by heading out of Tanunda to Krondorf, arriving at Rockfords where the small and unassuming cellar door belies its big reputation. The complex of rustic buildings could be mistaken for a tourist village, except nothing is contrived … it's an intact regional icon that prefers hand-picked, hand forked fruit processed in a vintage crusher, original basket press and open top fermenters. Whilst the quality that results from sourcing limited fruit from local growers and labour intensive, uncompromising wine making values has given them an enviable reputation, you should visit the winery for a first-hand impression ... it will so enhance the appreciation and enjoyment of that special bottle of Basket Press Shiraz. We had a great yarn on the cellar door bench sampling the current vintages with the lovely Jess and will be back for more reds soon!

Feeling at home at Charles Melton

Travelling all but a few hundred metres further up Krondorf road we found ourselves enveloped by legions of gnarly old bush vines at Charles Melton. Drawn to the crackling cellar door fire, we felt like old friends by the time we’d made it through the extensive line up of hearty reds. A wonderfully hospitable place with superb deep red secrets to match - we were particularly taken with the Grenache and GSM offerings which characterise the richly developed dark and delicious fruit of the old vine approach - truly. We wandered back to the car weighed down with more reds for the cellar and a smile of contentment from the whole experience.

Getting our groove on at Tscharkes

With the afternoon sun dwindling, we decided to finish with a local recommendation, finding our way to the funky cellar door of Tscharkes in Maranaga. The feel of modern European varietals and the quirky vibe are interestingly juxtaposed against the historical setting of Maranaga. The cellar door is beautifully complimented by the organic appeal of hand-made pottery and we absolutely loved the 05 Tempranillo and the Garnacha! We will certainly be back to do one of the underground tastings.

Kicking back to Thursday Jam night at Bibu

Having exhausted our palates across the entire range of three wonderful cellar doors we needed culinary CPR. I don’t know if there was ever the equivalent of a vine pull scheme for mock Bavarian restaurant menus but happily the force of generational change, marketing savvy and emphasis on the visitor experience is driving a renewal in the Barossa that also extends to food.

Thankfully Bibu (in the main street of Tanunda) had been recommended for a casual tasting menu and accompanying local producers wine list. We were lucky enough to be in on a Thursday ‘Jam’ night and settled back with a dip plater, home-made pate and grazing board that still celebrated old world traditions that  live on in the dried, pickled, fermented and smoked offerings of numerous fine local producers.

It’s great to see the support and enthusiasm for Bibu as a spring board for local producers, seasonal food and live entertainment. Soul Growers, Diggers Bluff and Tim Smith wines topped off the day beautifully as we sat back and enjoyed the music. It truly is a region to support and cherish!

Stroll boldly through the pig pavilion of life!

Despite the vast collection of smells that inhabit your memory, you can’t invoke any of them like an image or a song. It’s not until vapour from something aromatic wafts into your nasal cavity that a smell is either stored or recognised, sometimes stirring potent memories and responses. 

Like taste, smell is a chemical sense and it seems well-sampled aromas (up to 10,000 of them in humans) remain stable and accurate in the memory, unlike apocryphal tales and fishing stories.

So fundamental is this cognitive ability, that it now appears loss of sense of smell in older people could be an early sign of Alzheimer's.

For humans, smell is both primal and aesthetic, encouraging us to breed and avoid what makes us ill, whilst all the time enjoying the source of bouquet, perfumes, scents, fragrances, essences and aromas and their emotional associations.

While we seem hardwired for certain behavioural responses to scents and odours, the greater part of olfactory learning is through life’s experiences, including inherited aversions and emotional associations, so it’s no accident that emotive language evolved around nasty odours – stink, pong, stench, foul, fetid, rancid, putrid, reek etc.

When it comes to wine, a decent array of olfactory reference points is therefore also a function of time and our willingness to stroll boldly through the pig pavilion of life.

Few of us have ever fired our forbear’s flintlocks at the feral cats in the tack room at the hunt club, fallen from the saddle into the leaf litter of the forest floor, trampled through the gooseberry bushes, soaked our socks in a peat bog, napped rocks or tarred and feathered any enemies, let alone done enough hay carting to distinguish between the smell of oaten and lucerne hay – and yet whether we’ve been there or not, once we have a decent olfactory reference to the Loire Valley or back lanes of Pokolbin, we are thereafter able to engage a form of sensory geolocation or GPS.

According to the CSIRO the human nose combines versatility and performance unmatched by any scientific instrument but in future don’t be so quick to drag your dog away from its analysis of the footpath – with over 200 million receptors to interpret their world (as opposed to our meagre 5 million) it can read like a Dan Brown novel.

An Adelaide Hills day out for two visiting lady-poms:

I recently had the pleasure of playing co-host for friends of a friend, who were out on holiday from the UK. It was a fleeting visit and given the girl's intent to try and make the most of their time on the eastern seaboard we were left with one precious Sunday to showcase the Adelaide Hills.

As it turned out we ended up with two castaways from the most appalling wet weather to hit the QLD coast for some time. Standing water-logged in the still and brilliant sunshine of a quintessential Adelaide Hills Autumn day, our guests were clearly thankful to finally be seeing blue sky in Australia. What followed was a salutary lesson to their hosts, who had undersold the Adelaide experience in typically self-conscious South Australian style.  

We started the day with a 'sure thing' between Hanhdorf and Balhannah, choosing Nepenthe as the introductory offering. The vines were still lush and beaming from a stellar 2012 harvest which was mostly bumbling away in ferment but for the odd block of late ripening red. Having tried to talk the girls round to the highly acclaimed Ithaca Chardonnay, I sensed it could take best part of the day to shake the ABC (Anything But Chardonnay) bias and so we opted for the more than pleasant and very reasonably priced 2011 Sauvignon Blanc. We sat on the expansive lawn and soaked up the sunshine, sharing recent travel stories of Everest trekking and Thailand shenanigans.

'Oh what a feeling' - Nepenthe

We could have easily settled in for a few more bottles but I was keen to showcase another fantastic winery setting and so we travelled a stone’s throw to the verdant lawns of Shaw + Smith. Here we shared three wine flights between the five of us, enjoying the tasty morsels of impeccably matched cheese. Again consensus opinion was for the super refreshing 2011 Sauvignon Blanc, but there was high praise for the balance and quality of the M3 Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and more than a little respect shown for the spicy Shiraz offering.

'Wine Flights' at Shaw + Smith

It was early afternoon by the time we could pull ourselves away but we ventured on in pursuit of some funky cool climate varietals at Hahndorf Hill. There was a great vibe at the cellar door and despite the bustling crowd, Larry the co-owner made sure there was room for everyone at the tasting bench. Having established the presence of foreign critics, Larry went out of his way to describe the cool climate influence that delivers the balance of structure, refreshing acid and minerality. With the sun streaming in, the Blaufrankish/Trollinger Rosé , Pinot Grigio and crisp Chardonnay all made perfect sense. I was a little sad there wasn't any of the famous GRU (Gruner Veltliner) to show off; having talked it up in the car but unsurprisingly it was sold out. We withdrew to an outside table for a glass of our favourites and one of the ladies insisted on a chardonnay dominant blend - so progress was being made.

Could it be possibly be Chardonnay? - Hahndorf Hill

We were pushing our luck to get to the Lane Vineyard for our final tasting - but true to my word we headed up the brief dirt driveway to a cellar door perched at around 420m. As if it was meant to be, Christian the cellar door manager had an extensive range already opened so we were blessed with a 'top to tail' tasting accompanied by a few macaroons and a cheese board. We made some great Chardonnay progress here with special approval for the elegant Chablis style approach of 'Block 3'. Other special mentions must go to the 'Gathering' (Sauv/Sem blend), Grigio and Viognier which cried out for the restaurant food on offer. In the end we settled on a bottle of Block 14 'Basket Press' Shiraz and some Sauvignon - retiring to the afternoon sun on the viewing deck.

Macaroon tasting plate at The Lane Vineyard

Looking at the panoramic vista along the flowing ribbons of the Mt Lofty Ranges, even as a local I was still mesmerised by the Autumn landscape. There's something about being able to see a distant horizon that resonates with all of us.

Happy days at The Lane Vineyard

With the sun low in the sky we  headed back to Carey Gully knowing we had aged Cabernet and traditional barbecue rites to perform for our expectant guests. As the girls booked their hire car to tackle the Great Ocean road the following day, we knew we'd struck a chord that might reverberate into the future. Nothing beats good wine, in good company, on a crystal clear sunny day in the Adelaide Hills.

'Contented with Cabernet'

Given it was only a snippet; I'm looking forward to doing a sequel in the near future. Until then.

Much Love,

The Terroir-ist.