Saturday 20 April, 2019
The Easter break presented a great opportunity this year as it ran itself almost smack bang into Anzac Day giving us a full ten day break if we took three annual leave days to bridge them. We thought what a great opportunity to go to see South Australia and all the wonderful wine regions. We have certainly consumed enough of their wine and outside of the Barossa Valley, we had never been to any of them. So off on a road trip with our first stop Coonawarra!
Here are the obligatory photos at the famous Coonawarra railway siding.
Five hours out of Melbourne, Coonawarra is situated just across the South Australian border. This is a unique little wine region of a cigar-shaped strip of red soil over limestone that makes the region famous for its fabulous cabernet and shiraz.
We only stayed overnight so didn't get to too many wineries. We stopped at Redman’s, Majella and Hollick’s for dinner, Every year for the past ten years or so, we have done the Coonawarra Road Show wine tasting, so have had tried their wines many times. 
Sunday 21 April, 2019
We left Coonawarra early to get to Barossa in reasonable time – approximately five hours drive away. We stopped to take a photograph of the Coonalpyn's Painted Silos.
After a long drive we finally arrived in Barossa and checked into our beautiful accommodation at Jacob's Creek Retreat. Barossa Valley is one of the most historic wine producing regions in Australia with a history dating back to 1842.
We firstly visited Torbreck and then the famous wineries of Yalumba and Charles Melton. Yalumba is of particular note because it is the nation’s oldest family-owned winery and the estate had a very ‘old-world’ feel to it.
Beyond Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon South Australia has a tradition for producing great fortified wine, of which Grenache often plays a starring role. In our opinion, Grenache is a massively under-rated wine.
One of the special things about Barossa are the old vines, some going back 150 years. Yalumba in particular have a block of very old Grenache that's still farmed on bush vines.
Barossa was still very dry when we visited – locals told us they hadn’t had any rain in over twelve months. The photos show how dry it was. Still beautiful, especially at sunset as the long golden rays of sun highlighted the dry landscape.
Turns out kangaroos like to visit vineyards too.
As always, we had researched the best restaurants in the area and had booked into The Appellation at The Louise Estate (which is a Relais & Châteaux boutique hotel).
As you can see, food was great.
Monday 22 April, 2019
Spent Easter Monday checking out more wineries. Clare Valley, famous for its reisling in particular is a relatively short drive from Barossa, (about 100kms) so we decided to go on a road trip to visit Pikes, Grosset and Kilikanoon wines.
Tuesday 23 April, 2019
While in the Barossa we stayed at Jacobs Creek Retreat which had beautiful old cottages converted into B&B accommodation. Gardens were beautiful.
The gardens had all these old river red gumtrees around the manicured lawns.
Before we left the Barossa we went to Henschke winery in Eden Valley. Henschke (1868) is a family-owned, 151-year-old winery which produces the 'Hill of Grace', a Shiraz blend, one of Australia's "cult wines", and considered one of Australia best wines by James Halliday. Langton's classification also rates it very highly, being 'Exceptional' their highest category.
A photo of the original founder Johann Christian Henschke with his wife Appolonia who died, along with his six year-old son and nine month old daughter en route to Australia. Whatever else you might want to say about nineteenth century German Lutherans, they certainly seemed to know how to have a good time.
We took a photo of the Hill of Grace vineyard with its famous old German Lutheran church.
The graveyard at the church was full of the original settlers with the tombstones written in German. Here is Johann Henschke’s grave.
Then we moved onto Adelaide Hills and stopped at Shaw + Smith, the makers of some very fine Sauvignon Blanc – unfortunately Trevor hates Sauvignon Blanc and I’m not a fan either. Luckily they produce some awesome versions of Chardonnay, Pinot and Shiraz.
Wednesday 24 April, 2019
We had lovely weather while we were in Adelaide so did a look around the Botanical Gardens.
...and a quick trip on Adelaide’s premier tram to Glenelg beach. It was very windy.
Spent the evening hopping from one great cocktail bar to the next.
