Kathleen
Tanunda, Australia – The Barossa Valley
April 19-21, 2016
We had been looking forward to the barossa valley, since it is home of what some believe to be Australia’s best big, rich red wines, the crown jewel being Shiraz. We stayed at a lovely little bed and breakfast which shared its property with vineyards and a lovely family with multiple generations running the business. We had a lovely day running around to see a bunch of different vineyards and topped it off with a lovely dinner reccomended by our hosts, complete with wine pairings from around the world. It might seem like we should have been drinking only Australian wines, but the Sommelier was so interesting and the selection of wines so unique, that we simply had a wonderful experience. One example is that we tasted a pink sake that almost tasted like a rose and had about the same amount of alcolhol as wine. Apparently it comes from a red rice that is very rare….fascinating!
Like all wine areas, the Barossa was beautiful. Heading out, we crossed over the ridge and through yet another specific wine region, which is McLaren Vale. We had a ways to go still so we only made a couple of very breif stops here, but found a Grenache that was amazing and were surpised to see the same exact wine on exhibit for tasting at the Australian Wine Center which we visited in Adelaide the next week. Cool!