Barossa & Adelaide Hills Weekend

Last weekend I was treated to a long weekend at the Barossa, it was about 18 years ago that I last visited and it was indeed a treat.  We flew into Adelaide and made our way to Adelaide Hills and the well known Bridgewater Mill for lunch and tasting of the wonderful Petaluma Wines.   Next Next we wandered to Shaw & Smith and enjoyed a fleet of wines with matching cheese, the wines were superb and the highlight was having a good discussion with Michael Smith who introduced himself when he overheard a reference to Shanghai -- a place he had just returned from.

Our destination was the Barossa Valley -- renown for fine wines and gourmet food; and we were not disappointed.  The Barossa Shiraz wine's are amongst the best in Australia and we tasted many great drops. Amongst our favourite vineyards were:

• Rockford
• Torbeck
• Charles Melton
• Henschke

Two Hands was easily the worst we visited; however they had some really great wines to compare against.  The only saving grace was that Two Hands had a series of Shiraz from 4 different regions: Barossa, McLaren Vale, Heathcote and Padthway.

We also visited Trevor Jones, Penfolds and  Jacob's Creek -- each of these were good but not great.

But for my birthday dinner, Anna booked us into Appellation, perhaps the finest restaurant in the Barossa Valley.  The food was superb and very much a take on the 3 Michellin star -- Chateau Cordeillan Bages from Pauillac, it was really good but never reached the heights that the Bordeaux classic inspiration must have instigated.

As we had brought various gourmet food items from the Barossa Farmer's market and Maggie Beer's Farm, meant that the experience would linger for many more months after this trip !!!