Day 12 – Thurs, 4 Oct 2018 – Highlights of Barossa Tour

Today started with a lovely breakfast at the resort. Can’t complain about the view, that’s for sure.

We were picked up by our driver at 10am and set off for a VERY long day. John (our driver) was friendly and very knowledgeable. He is a local and knows the history. Tells a good story too.

We picked up our friends from the Holiday Park (including Ken who is 66 today) and then picked our two final passengers, Bec and Amy.

Stop 1: Basedow wines. Their cellar door is at the Nurioopta end of Tanunda. The young man who was our host was lovely and clearly enjoyed his job. Apparently he’s not related to the Basedow family but looking at the photos I have my doubts about that!

Stop 2: The Barossa Valley Cheese Company for a tasting and the opportunity to purchase some cheese. Located in a lovely little shop in Angaston. They had some really nice cheeses to taste and Danny picked up some goats cheese to eat later.

After  a meandering drive through a few local towns to see some of the architecture and hear some history (the Barossa is actually over 1000 square km region), we headed into Seppeltsfield.

On the way there we noted the palm trees lining some of the roads. The story goes that, during the Depression, the Seppelt family needed to provide work for their vinehands and various family and workers that they felt responsible for. They hit on a scheme to plant palm trees in order to harvest dates. Problem was, these are the wrong palm trees! At least it kept everyone occupied.

Stop 3: Seppeltsfield Wines (including the Jam Factory Craft + Design Studios and Vasse Virgin skin care). This complex was sold to corporate ownership in 1985 but in 2007 returned to private ownership under Warren Randall (viticulturist & winemaker) who sees his role as the custodian of the Seppelt family legacy. He has recently recommissioned the gravity cellar to be used in still winemaking.

This is an amazing complex. It’s very commercial (their tasting area is huge) but they’ve retained a lot of history, both architectural as well as the fact that in the cellar, they have a wine barrel from each year’s vintage.

There is also the Jam Factory (Artisan Studios) that houses a variety of arts and crafts with working artists on site periodically. Then there’s the “lotions & potions” building housing the Vasse Virgin skin care range.

Stop 4: Lunch at the Monkey Nut Café and wine tasting at Kies Family Wines.

The café is part of the Kies complex and is a nice space for lunch.

Kies Family Wines is a small winery but they have some good wines and are well worth the visit if you’re in the area. Jesseca Kies was our host for today and she is delightful. You can see the passion she has for the family business and regaled us with great family stories as well as her considerable knowledge of their wines.

We left Kies and took another short tour around some of the small towns in the area. John, our driver, has grown up here so he gave us some further information and showed us some beautiful old buildings.

Stop 5: Maggie Beer’s Farm Café for afternoon tea.

As always, Maggie’s is a lovely spot – beautiful scenery and lots of jams, pickles and sauces to sample.

We had a lovely afternoon tea and got to sing Ken “Happy Birthday” as well.

As you can imagine, it was a really long day but certainly well worth it.

We said goodbye to Ralph & Barb and Ken & Colleen at this point as they were beginning their long trip back to Queensland after a detour to the Grampians.

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