Onwards to Barossa

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.