Join us on our great wine adventure as week by week we travel this wide brown land of Australia, exploring each of the 65 amazing wine regions in all their delicious glory! We’ll share our experiences, and you share yours!
Grampians
A soy-latte-loving, Bear Grylls-style camera man of ours, whom we very nearly broke during the filming of our earlier Road to Vino episodes, went hiking in the Grampians a few months ago.
The images he brought back took my breath away.
Stunningly grand mountain ranges soared across the lands, and our boy climbed to the top of the sky.
What he did not do enough of, being more an advocate of soy lattes, was dive into the cool climate magic of the Grampians’ wines.
Henty
Bumping up against the South Australian border, a stone’s throw from the Coonawarra and Mount Gambier regions, Henty is, quite frankly, HUGE.
Legendary grazing land (the townships of Merino and Macarthur back this fact up), the region was first settled by the Henty brothers (and why not name it after yourself?), who apparently did bring vines as well as sheep, as recorded in their ship’s log, from back in 1834, but it wasn’t until 1964 that someone had a serious crack at vino, when Karl Seppelt took a punt, quite rightly identifying it as an ideal cool region for the production of sparkling and aromatic wines.
Swan Hill
Continuing southeast along the great River Murray, from the Murray Darling region, you come to the Swan Hill wine region.
Not to be confused with Swan Districts in WA.
Story goes that Major Thomas Mitchell, Surveyor-General of New South Wales, camping on the banks of the River Murray some time in 1836, was kept up all night by a noisy flock of black swans.
It’s hot, though slightly cooler than Murray Darling, relies on irrigation, and produces drink-now Chardonnay, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon, for the most part.
The Chardy is soft, melony and peachy. The Shiraz and Cabernet are fruit-driven and medium in weight, and decent value for what you get.
We’re also seeing some Italian varietals like Sangiovese and Durif emerging in more recent times.
Bests Wines, Brown Brothers, Andrew Peace Wines and Buller Wines (since the 30′s) have a strong presence in the region, along with a handful of smaller producers.
Smack bang in the middle of the Murray Darling Food Basket, as they call it, it’s rich, fertile land, and wine grapes are not the only produce grown here in abundance.
Swan Hill has a vibrant food and produce culture, from freshwater fish to stone fruits of every kind (in fact its the centre of Australia’s fresh stone fruit industry), and it all comes alive in early march for the Swan Hill Region Food and Wine Festival.
Murray Darling
Across the border we go, and into Victoria, and the second largest wine region in the country – another of the “big 3″ engine rooms of Australian wine.
The Murray Darling is, in a word, vast. Not dissimilar to the Riverland in SA (indeed the two meet seemlessly with a little timber sign of the river, quaintly showing SA one way, and VIC the next), it’s traditionally produced a sh*t-load of Chardy, Shiraz and Cab Sav, a lot of which goes into bag-in-boxes and cheaper bottles of wine.
But in more recent times, we’re seeing the emergence of some more innovative wines, with an eye to a more sustainable future in the face of global warming.
And that’s the exciting stuff…
The less sexy fact of the matter is that it’s a big hot region with good soil. Wines have been planted in the Murray Darling since the late 19th century, and it produces a whopping quarter of the whole country’s wines.
Chardonnay is king – in fact more Chardonnay is produced here than anywhere else in the country – but it’s ripe, fruity Chardonnay. Okay if you’re after an $6 drink, not so thrilling if you’re after something a bit more interesting.
Shiraz and Cabernet are along the same lines – soft, ripe, sweet fruit, Australia’s “sunshine in a bottle” wines.
I don’t mean to sound like a wine snob – this is a critically important region to the whole country. You’ve got Treasury (Fosters), Accolade (Constellation), Orlando (Jacob’s Creek), Casella (Yellowtail) and other giants with hectares and hectares of fruit planted, producing a fair whack of the country’s wines here.
And then you’ve got your slightly less massive producers like Zilzie and Deakin Estate, producing impressive volume as well.
But looking to the future, and the more premium wines, you start looking at Viognier, Petit Verdot and Nebbiolo, all showing quite smartly, and actually far better suited to the climate.
That’s the commercial wine side of the region, but what I’ve ignored so far is the river.
Timeless, meandering, ebbing and flowing – the Murray-Darling is not only the lifeblood of the region, but its the stuff of legend. So many great stories
The town of Mildura is a beautiful spot, and you’ve got to pop in to Stefano’s, the restaurant/cafe run by local foodie legend Stefano de Pieri. He and a handful of other passionate locals are showing off not just what the region produces, but what can be done with it in the right hands.
The famous pink river salt from the region sits proudly in my kitchen, and reminds me of some unforgettable nights in Mildura – well, reminds me of the bits I can still remember, anyway!
So leave the imported Maldon on the shelf, grab yourself some of the Murray’s finest, and picture yourself floating down Australia’s great river on a houseboat, fishing, swimming, eating, drinking…
Life’s okay.
Riverland
Until a kombi trip last summer, Riverland to me was simply the engine-room of Australia’s “Sunshine in a Bottle” wines. The place where a fair whack of this country’s wines were produced, and mostly of the bag-in-box variety. But three hours northwest and a breakdown near Banrock Station changed all that. It’s true, there are [...]
Southern Flinders Ranges
Breakthaking is a word used to describe the Southern Flinders Ranges. Most visitors would think rugged treks through the Mount Remarkable National Park, or adventures in the intriguingly-named Alligator Gorge. You might pop in for a visit to historic Melrose, or perhaps Laura or Wirrabara, or you might go fish and chips on the wharf [...]
Clare Valley
If you’re looking for a picture-book, quintessentially Australian wine region, look no further than the Clare Valley. If you’re looking for some of the finest Riesling in the world, look no further than the Clare Valley. If you’re looking for mist-shrouded, rolling green hills rising from tracts of wild Australian bushland, meandering rivers and creeks, [...]
Adelaide Plains
As desolate as it sounds, Adelaide Plains is actually a region directly north of the city of Adelaide, on the way to the Barossa or Clare Valley, really, about half an hour’s drive. We’re talking Virginia and Angle Vale all the way to Gawler, on the doorstep of the Barossa. And yet, for all its [...]
Kangaroo Island
Across the sea from Cape Jervis in South Australia lies one of the great natural wonders of the world. An island paradise whose beauty can barely be described in words. Penguins and sea lions basking on stunning white beaches, koalas dozing in lofty eucalypts, pelicans soaring over shimmering lagoons… Seriously. Kangaroo Island (or KI) is, [...]
Southern Fleurieu
There’s a stretch of land jutting out into the Great Australian Bite, from Sellicks Beach just south of McLaren Vale round to Victor Harbor and the Currency Creek wine region. If you’re standing on one of the beautiful blustering headlands looking out over the great blue southern ocean, you can see Kangaroo Island in the [...]