Port Augusta to Clare Valley, South Australia
A kind of 'bridge' day between the arid lands of inland Australia and the wine regions of South Australia. We spent it first at the Arid Lands Botanic Garden in Port Augusta, which was mildly interesting, then drove down to the Clare Valley for the night.
Chris did a pretty good summary of what he thought... here's what he had to say:
The Clare.
Yesterday (Thursday) I spent in the Clare Valley. The Clare is about 70 miles
north of Adelaide, and is the northernmost wine growing region in South
Australia. It's best known for Riesling.
On the way into Clare (the village) to find a motel, I stopped in at Jim
Barry. I'd heard of them before - The Armagh is their superpremium Shiraz,
and it goes for about A$140 a bottle. It was raining like crazy when we pulled
into their parking lot, and the tasting room was small, wood-panelled, cozy,
and inviting. The woman manning the shop showed up in a bit, smiled, and
apologized that she was filling in for the regular staff (she normally works
in the back office). Their riesling was decent and pretty inexpensive at
around $15, but nothing spectacular. However, they had a 6-pack of rieslings,
one from every six years starting with 1991, for a mere A$90, which seemed
like a great deal - I could hardly pass up on the offer, but the car is just
too full of wine right now, and I won't be able to drink it all before I left
the country. They also had 6-packs of a 1998 riesling for A$20 (not a typo) -
but they warned us that maybe only 3 or 4 of the bottles would be OK to drink.
Pretty cool! I'm always impressed by tasting rooms that have a lot of wacky or
older stuff you can't buy any other way. We did buy one bottle of the 1995
McRae Wood cabernet malbec for A$20 - an absolute steal. Had it with dinner
last night - smooth, silky, wonderful. Only available at the cellar door
though. The other McRae Wood wines struck me as OK but nothing really special;
the only other standout was an A$12 botrytised riesling that was very tasty
indeed, and great value for money. Dan bought a bottle; he's mad for stickies.
I then checked in to the Clare Central Motel (queen size room with continental
breakfast, A$95), and decided to head all the way down the valley to
Grosset. Jeffrey Grosset is basically Lord God King of Aussie Riesling,
and his 2002 Watervale riesling is what I had for my birthday this year -
lovely stuff, expensive at A$28 but worth every cent. I figured it'd be good
to start there, buy the Polish Hill riesling (A$32 - even better than the
Watervale, almost enough to make me burst into tears), try the Gaia (A$48 -
the best Bordeaux style red I've had in Australia; I bought a bottle to cellar
until 2010 or so), and (most importantly) get some tips on where else to go. I
figured it'd be a good idea to go to the winery you know and love, and ask
them for directions to the next stop.
[As an aside, the 2000 Gaia was sold out in Stelvin, so I had to settle for
cork. Apparently only 30% was bottled in Stelvin, and they couldn't fill all
orders for it, so they'll probably go all-Stelvin with the 2001.]
Grosset directed us to Mitchell, a few miles back towards Clare up some
very twisty little roads off to the west. Now, I had never heard of these
folks, and it's my great loss that I hadn't. In short, Mitchell get it more
than anyone else I'd been to so far. Their 2001 Watervale riesling (Watervale
is a very small area of the Clare Valley) was absolutely phenomenal. Not as
jaw-dropping as the Grosset but wonderful and not quite so pricey - only A$18
a pop. I didn't try their semillon, but I did try their cellar door only late
harvest riesling, which was absolutely lovely - sweet, sure, but not overly
so, and perfect if you don't like bone dry rieslings. Seumas, this wine would
probably make your day. From there, it was on to their grenache (wonderful,
not 100% grenache, I think, which made it especially interesting), their
shiraz (under Stelvin, interestingly enough; Dan bought one at $18), which was
probably the best shiraz I'd had under A$20 at the time, and finally their
botrytised semillon, which was absolutely lovely. Very much like a low end
Sauternes, and I suspect much better if you could just leave it in the cellar
for a few years.
The woman who poured the wines for us was a blast - very friendly,
knowledgeable about how everything was produced, and kind. Yay for Mitchell.
Next stop on the list was Pikes, which is right next door to the Polish
Hill church (Polish Hill, like Watervale, is a tiny area in the Clare Valley).
I was a little bummed that they didn't have sangiovese open to pour for us,
but they did offer to open the last remaining bottle so that I could
have a taste. Their wines were uniformly good, but not really to my taste; the
riesling was fine but just... a little flabby, I guess. Dan took a shine to
their grenache shiraz mataro blend, which I felt was good but not as good as
other Rhône blends, eg the Rosemount GSM. Still, at A$18, pretty good for what
you paid. Their shiraz was okay, nothing special; the cabernet was fine, too,
but it's really getting to the point where if it isn't absolutely wonderful or
a great value, I don't want to buy it.
Next stop: Sevenhill. This is the oldest winery in the region, and a
Jesuit one at that. The tasting room was woefully understaffed - just one
dorky guy in a blue chambray shirt finishing up a A$700 order with a couple of
seniors when we got in there. It took him a long time to get around to us.
Their riesling was good, but too sweet for me; the only real flaw was that Mr
Tasting Guy would not shut the fuck up while I was tasting it. I really hate
it when the staff starts yakking endlessly about how you're about to
experience lifted grapefruit (wha?) and citrussy, minerally flavours (well,
yeah, but...). I really hate it because sometimes you actually start
tasting what they're talking about, which feels like cheating to me.
Anyhow, most of their stuff was pretty ordinary; the whites were too sweet,
but the reds were actually surprisingly good. They had a Bordeaux blend
(everything except petit verdot!) for less than A$20 that I would definitely
have bought if I could've taken it directly home; cellar it for a decade and
boom! you'd be in wino heaven. But, again, I'm trying to keep the purchases
down to the truly phenomenal or collectable. They had a shiraz touraga malbec
that was good but bizarre (it smelled like a Tandy leather moccasin kit), and
a shiraz malbec that was surprisingly good for only A$14; Dan bought a bottle
of that. (It'll be a perfect wine for a bistro BYO meal.) All in all, it seems
that their major market are seniors with a sweet tooth; they sell lots of
cheap port and sherry in plain liter bottles, and while we were there the grey
nomads just kept on showing up and buying it buy the case. Still, if you're in
the area and have lots of trunk space, the Bordeaux blend (sorry, can't
remember what they call it) is worth the money any day of the week.
Let's see... what was next? Ah, that's right. Leasingham. Time was, it
was a family winery; now, it's a part of BRL Hardy or Sousecorpse or one of
the biggies. Whoever owns Houghton (they had lots of 187 mL bottles of
Houghton white burgundy for sale). (In fact, I'm starting to think that any
winery that has 187 mL bottle of anything for sale must be part of a huge
corporation). Now, I'm partial to Leasingham, corporate heinousness
notwithstanding. Their riesling was OK, but they had a 1997 reserve riesling
available that was really delicious. I bought one; I think it was about A$20.
I also blew A$8 on a half bottle of the 1998 cabernet malbec (hey, I wanted to
taste it, and A$8 is not that much money). Sadly, you couldn't taste their top
shelf wines (the Classic Clare range) - again, a real down side to the big
corporate wineries. Still, the tasting room was pretty cool, with friendly
staff - if you could just ignore the stupid wine lifestyle marketing claptrap
all over the place. (No, I do not want a Polarfleece jumper with the winery
logo on it.)
Finally, last stop of the day was Knappstein. Apparently founded by
some guy named Knappstein who used to work for Leasingham pre-corporate
takeover, it's now an independently owned company without the guy named
Knappstein. Or something. I got a little confused because I stopped spitting
at this point in the day (our motel was right next door). I liked everything I
tried here, which was a real problem as I wound up buying six bottles. The
2002 riesling was steely and dry, just the way I like it; they also had a 1995
cellar release riesling that was starting to do that heavenly stinky gasoline
thing on the nose; the sparkling (méthode traditionelle, no less) riesling was
a fun diversion at A$12 a bottle, a surprisingly dry and spicy gewürztraminer,
and then their Enterprise cabernet. OK, it was A$38, which is a good chunk of
change, but I thought it was absolutely lovely. I believe it's about 3% malbec
hiding in there, which really does the trick in terms of making it stand out
from the rest.
From there, we staggered back to the motel and had a nap before dinner.
A big speckled skink under the bushes at the garden. Somewhere there's a picture...