Wine tasting in Adelaide Hills.
Life begins twice a day: when you get up and when you have your first cocktail. After a morning and early afternoon doing administrative chores related to “where are wee staying next, how will we get there, why did we forget to book THAT flight, where’s the laundry, did you cancel that thing, and similar concerns,” we realize that we don’t have enough time to go to the Barossa Valley for vineyards, but we can visit some vineyards in the Adelaide Hills, all around us.
We visit Shaw&Smith first, where we have a very late lunch platter of mushroom pate and salami and smoked trout and other horrible stuff with a tasting flight of five wines, including a sauvignon blanc that Cynthia really likes. We ask our waiter if the vineyard exports to the USA and if so, who’s the distributor. He talks at length about how trying to export wine to the U.S. is as difficult as sending it to Europe. “Every state has different rules,” he says. “Texas has a rule about shipping no more than 10 bottles to a case. All wines have 12, of course.” He allows that he would give us a deep discount on bottle prices but we’d still have to pay $200 per case to ship. Sadly, just not worth it. We write the name of the distributor and hope springs eternal.
Next stop: Petaluma, on the suggestion of last night’s waitress Harrietta. We don’t fall in love with its wines but we take notice of its Nebbiolo rose, which has a faint copper color and is rather unusual and nice for a rose. We finally arrive at Bird in Hand, which is a gorgeous place with sculptures and small groups of people drinking wine on blankets spread on its lawns. And a “honeysuckle” riesling that we both like a lot, but, ultimately, not enough to buy and lug with us for the next few thousand kilometers and air miles.
We return to Hahndorf and turn up our noses at three restaurants, ending up at the same place as last night. The bartender remembers us and makes another very serviceable Negroni and remembers the Pagos Del Rey “Pulpo” Albariño that transported Cynthia previously.
Another pretty totally viniferous day in Oz.
Two Tramps 
One response to “Apr 7 Hahndorf in Adelaide Hills”
Enjoying your posts every day, or most every day as they sometimes arrive in my inbox bunched together. “Liking” this one doesn’t mean I didn’t like the others–all have been enjoyed. Just a way of saying Hi and thank you….
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