The Great Whites of Adelaide Hills

 

The climate is cooler in Adelaide Hills as we rolled into Hanhdorf, a quaint tourist hot spot.  Beautiful rolling green hills in early November and little lakes dotted the landscape on our drive up to the first stop, Nepenthe.  Nepenthe, a 100k case producer, had affordable sparkling chardonnay that proved to be a crowd pleaser with our friends in Sydney.  Nepenthe introduced us to the potential of the whites in Adelaide Hills.  Our next stop was a relatively new winery: The Lane.  The Lane was created in 2004 from a family winery that sold their first wine making holdings to Hardy's (Australia's dominating wine and spirits co.).  Instead of going into retirement, the family reinvested into the winery creating a state-of-the-art facility and restaurant on premises. The white label wines were fun and fruity with an elegant mineral/acid finish.  Most notable in that range was the Chardonnay/Pinot Grigio/Semillion called Finn on the Off The Leash label.  Finn has a floral/fruity aroma similiar to a young viognier with a taste of passionfruit & tingling acidity that persisted on the finish.  Our cellar door server, Allister, gained enthusiasm as he watched our faces light up in delight when tasting Finn.  He brought over rainwater and prepped our next taste series: The Black Label.  

Bearing the namesake of the winery, the black label wines have a serious backbone brought about with the use of neutral oak and characteristic long tingling acidity.  The Lane's 2009 pinot grigio has a disarming aroma of raspberry cream & lemon/lime with loads of fresh tingling fruit on the back end. wow!  With cellar door prices ranging from $20(AUD for Finn), $39 (AUD black label chardonnay) to $65 (AUD black label "reunion" shiraz), The Lane has competitive pricing for high-end wines.  My palate exploded with joy on trying their 2008 "Gathering" Sauvignon Blanc/Semillion.  This wine is proof of the 10+ year aging potential of Sauvignon Blanc.  The style is a must try for anyone interested in the future of alter-chardonnay fine white wine. Of course, I'm not the only person who thought highly of "Gathering," Wine Business Magazine gave it a glowing 96 points.

Shiraz from Adelaide Hills does not have the characteristic thickness/raisiny style of the Barossa. As for the Shiraz from The Lane, this persisting minerality and acidity turned out to be a good thing.  The 2007 "Reunion" black label shiraz had the longest elegant finish of all the shiraz I tried this year in South Australia.  Of course, it's not all about finish: complex and tight berry flavors on the front palate gave a hint at the 15+ year aging potential of a wine under stelvin cap. 

If you are excited about these wines, make note: the 2008-2009 vintages for white wines were phenomenal and the 2007 red varietals showed excellent aging potential. On the "Black Label" the longitude and latitude points are printed on the back.  Here are the positions of my top two:

2008 Gathering Sauvignon Blanc Semillon ($35 AUD)
35 0'40.44"S | 38 50'9.38"E

2007 Reunion Shiraz ($65 AUD)
35 0'36.25"S | 38 56"E

Riesling Breakdown!

Clare Valley, a slightly cooler microclimate region just north of Barossa is home of Riesling.  With the recent buyout and local closure of Leasingham Winery earlier in 2009, Clare valley has an opportunity for smaller family producers to fill the gap (of course, the buyout means Leasingham will still be making wines, just not in Clare).  Justin and I went around to discover the differences in the 3 subregions in Clare: Polish Hill River, Central Clare Valley & Watervale.

Justin tastes the sparkling riesling at Paullet's in Polish Hill River area.

Paullet's was the first place outside of the central Clare valley that we tasted.  Noting a remarkable increase in the quality of the fruitiness and finish in the rieslings, Justin amused me by picking up a san-pellegrino-style half bottle of sparkles.

Watervale is a micro-town just south of Clare proper, we flew through it on the way in, but retraced back when we were recommended to taste at Crabtree. 

Kerrie Thompson is the new winemaker at Crabtree starting after the '07 vintage.  Besides making an incredible lemon-curdy '09 "Watervale" Riesling, Thompson produced an remarkable Tempranillo in 2008.  Kerrie Thompson is a taste of the future of Clare Valley, pay attention to her own label: KT & The Falcon.

Justin scribbles tasting notes at Crabtree's stone cellar door

"The Doozie" at Jeanerret blew up my palate.  Holy petrol-honey bouquet of a classic style riesling!  Of course at $40 a bottle, I didn't have the pocket change to load up.  All things considered, 2nd generation (and self-taught) winemaker, Ben Jeanneret, has created a riesling that will curl the tongues of W.S. staff...  Too bad there's only about 150-200 cases of this stuff.  Jeanerret's merlot, "HumMer",  of all things, could flip long-time merlot haters.  Don't be a hater.

All in all, Clare is still struggling to make a name for herself.  Growers aren't getting the prices they deserve for their very low-yielding acres and vineyards are being reduced.

Accommodation in Clare Valley

We stayed at the Clare Country Club which, when we booked on Hotels.com, came in just over $100/night.  A wonderful little spot on a lake, where the club obviously reinvested into their business maintaining it and making improvements along the way.  Above our room, their restaurant had a tasty tapas style dinner with a view of the lake and more Dukkah!

Delicate Wines by Rugged Aussies!

Dan Standish is a winemaker superstar in The Barossa, I called him on the pay phone and he quickly set up an appointment with his partner, Fraser McKinley at the winery that produces Massena and Standish Wine Co. wines.

Fraser, a burly Aussie in a red tank top, greeted us with a friendly smile and a line of fine wines inside their stone house winery.  Standish makes a wine called "The Relic," and we tried the 2007, it had that classic Barossa syrah feel but with a more delicate nature.  I felt like this was a wine that will show perfectly in the 2011 season as it hadn't quite developed fully.

Armed with a paint-bucket spitoon, Fraser enlightened us about the region, making recommendations about where we should go next: Rockford(purchased their 20 yr tawny!), Torbreck & Henske (in Eden Valley, just to the East).  We finished early so Fraser could head off and not miss the Melbourne Cup!

The Holy Trinity: Pesto, Risotto Cakes & Dukkah

Lucky for us, it was Monday and The Vintner's Restaurant had a light crowd and seated us at 7:30pm.  With a wall of the best local wines and a simple menu, we requested a vegetarian entree par the chef's descretion.  Out came a plate of bread, local olive oil and a popular addition called Dukkah which is a crushed blend of fennel, coriander seeds and sesame seeds.  Holy shit! Delicious!  Next, the pumpkin risottos balls and our recommended wine in a decanter: Laughing Jack 2005 Shiraz.

I'm happy I remembered to photo this dinner, it was one of the most memorable dinners ever.  Shawn Kalleske makes Laughing Jack and you can literally call him and go to his house to try his wine. The very next day, I called... and called, and then it occurred to me that Tuesday Nov. 3rd is the Melbourne Cup, Australia's official excuse to take the day off! Poop.  No more Laughing Jack for Madeline.

The Command circa 1904

Just outside the cellar door (tasting room) at Elderton is a plot of ancient shiraz vines that go into the covetted The Command.  We tasted the lot of Elderton wines, for free.

The winery converted entirely to screwtops, in fact, they indicated local bottle makers don't offer cork-style bottles and Australia is on the bottom of the cork-supply totem.  Elderton felt confident that their wines would preserve for at least 15 years based on the quality of the wine, not the screwtop.  The Neil Ashmead GTS was a totally different style then their usual figy-sweet shiraz, it was dark raspberries, cocoa and coffee with a stick-shift screwtop...rad.

Don't Call it an Americano, Long Black

Surry Hills, which is to the south of Sydney proper, turned out to be a haven of unique cafes, restaurants and shopping. Here in Australia, the most popular breakfast option is called a Toastie: two super-thick pieces of toast, sauteed veggies & meat with something cheesy melted on top.

Since a toastie starts at around $13 in Sydney, Justin and I ate a lot of delicious plain toast!  The Pigeon Cafe, reminded me of the The Hub, in Reno, with funky decor and serious coffee. 

All over Australia, slightly sweetened cocoa is sprinkled over every cappuccino.  Oh... and even the Long Black I ordered in the airport tasted better than the majority of all the coffee I've ever had in the States.

The only places with free wireless in Sydney are MacDonald's, in Adelaide, the entire city has a wireless network!  Still, we left Adelaide behind and headed for Barossa Valley.