Wine Discovery

"If you only ever do one wine trail in Australia you have to make it South Australia's Barossa ... It is quintessential Australia where fine wine mixes with historical ambience, stunning cuisine and friendly laid back Australian hospitality." (Wine New Zealand magazine)

As you can see from above, South Australian is famous for its wine. Personally I'm not a wine lover but this is definitely a chance not to be missed if you are in South Australia --- pay a visit to Barossa Valley!!! Now only I realised that there are actually so many types of wines, Shiraz (I remember this very well as the smell is very very strong), Merlot (which I think is the second strongest after Shiraz)... I couldn't remember their names. I'm not into red wine, I prefer white wines. =)

Barossa wine region comprises of the Barossa Valley and Eden Valley and it is home to some of the oldest Shiraz vineyards in the world. Most interestingly, Barossa heritage vines are free from phylloxera. In fact, all South Australian vines are free from phylloxera!! (I remember the tour guide stressed that many times, I think he is proud of the vines, haha...) Overally, the trip was fantastic except for the winding roads which made almost everyone of us nauseous.

The Barossa trip was an "experience" trip, which was meant for wine dummies like us (there were altogether 15 of us), or perhaps it should be called a wine discovery trip. =P Our first stop was The Big Rocking Horse, which is the biggest rocking horse in the world. There, we visited a toy factory and a small wildlife park. (I'm not sure if it is anyway) Being soooo close to kangaroos, wallabies, ostrich, sheep, peacock etc. made me really excited!!!

After visiting Angas Park Dried Fruits, we started our very first wine tasting adventure at Wolf Blass Winery. I can see several expressions while tasting wines:
"Ewww!!!"
"Wow..."
"Hmm.... Okay lah..."
As for me, the most frequent expression I had was "Eww!!!".

After having our scrumptious lunch at Nuriootpa Vine Inn, we continued our adventure at Vinecrest Winery, Barossa Vines and Kies Family Wines. The second winery was almost the same as the first one, being more commercialised and crowded with visitors. The third one was the place I bought a bottle of wine while the fourth one was a smaller winery, stylishly and traditionally furnished.

Before ending our trip, we visited The whispering Wall, which showed us how wonderful an architecture can be. By whispering at one end of the dam, the one standing at the other end can actually hear what you are saying CLEARLY. Amazing right? So yeah, this was our last stop in the trip.

Some random facts I learned during the wine discovery trip:

To differentiate between vines, vineyard and wines. Haha... (Sorry to say that I barely know about vines, vineyard and wines before this trip.)

South Australia being the driest state in Australia. (I knew that it's dry but I didn't expect it to be the driest.)

There aren't only one type of wine but a variety of them!

Snakes are the major threat to visitors in vineyard.

Vines are harvested by autumn.

A number of people are allergic to alcohol.

AND

most importantly, I was not drunk drinking wines!!! Hahaha...