Frankly Cross Eyed: Barossa Valley

How does one compensate for boredom? Alcohol often does the trick and let's see hmmm yes I would say that the Barossa Valley does indeed make up for the quiet that is central Adelaide. SuBoo and Moo decided to make use of my free accommodation and flew on over for a visit. A tour to the Barossa was priority! Or as Mooey christened it - the BarAWESOME valley!

I don't know why people kept asking me who was the designated driver - errr NO ONE of course! How can we ALL enjoy the *happy sniff* wine tasting if one of us has to drive? A coach tour it is!

Happy moo on the bus. Happy SuBoo on the bus. Moo making herself comfortable in an attempt to freshen up for the booze.

The drive to the wine county was via the hills area and not really the ideal route. I don't suffer from motion sickness but I actually starting feeling ill on the bus :S Not a good start for what was intended to be a boozy day!

The reason for this detour was to bring us to the Whispering Wall. I actually wasn't terribly interested in doing any of the touristy sites (bring on the booze!) but I have to admit, this was kinda cool.

The wall was constructed as part of a dam, but the workers realised they could clearly converse with each other even though they were standing at opposite ends!

One of our fellow tour group members ran to the other side to test it out. A question was asked from our end and we waited for him to reply from the other end. I kept getting annoyed that other tour members were answering on his behalf until I realised ... wtf!! It WAS him answering! Wah, so cool.

We finally made our first pit stop at Kies Winery, where after a quick morning tea we had our first wine sampling. Mmmmm, mmmm, this is where I made my first purchase of the Deerstalker Merlot. Make your own purchase here! Mmm so easy to drink.

Admittedly, I wasn't terribly keen on re-visiting the wineries I saw back in 2006, but in terms of trying to choose a tour which maximised our tastings, this would involve re-visits. That all being said, I'm very glad to have returned to Langmeil after being highly impressed with their wines previously. Not that I'm a wine connoisseur but they just happen to go down very well with me. And you know what? Langmeil sure didn't disappoint the second time round!

The folks at Langmeil are pretty damn proud (and so they should be) for having their 160+ year old vines which are possibly the oldest wine producing vines in the world. The vines are treated with TLC and are lovingly caressed - hand pruned rather than machine-hedged like their volumes-for-sale counterparts. You could totally taste the love. Totally.

The last time I was here, it was in the dead of winter and all the vines were a bunch of gnarly twigs. But oh oh OH! To see the grapes growing in their glory *sniff* it was just beautiful.

The grape which will one day be transformed into Langmeil's prime product, the 1843 Freedom shiraz. So luscious, so juicy. You can watch the process below!

Moo getting gnarly with the gnarly, old vines. Moo getting gnarly with the Langmeil puppy dog. The sweet lil' old soul that is.

Oh yes, tasting time. *shuffles inside*

The last time Moo and I were here, the Freedom shiraz was sold out and unavailable for tasting, but today, well today was a different story. We certainly got a taste of the wine and more importantly to Langmeil, we were sold! We all bought a stupid amount of wine (ok, so part of it is Moo's celebratory wine) and had it shipped back home. It all tasted too, too good.

Lunch was at Kaesler vineyards where I chose to have the German Platter. SuBoo had the chicken caesar while Moo had the Roo.

My platter complete with mustard, pickle, cheese and sauerkraut. Our sticky date pudding dessert which was yummmmmoooooo.

Tasting at Kaesler began in the adjacent building and while we dearly wanted to try the Old Bastard, it wasn't available for tasting. Boo hoo.

We did get a taste of The Bogan instead - which wasn't to our liking. But Moo did have the urge afterwards to drink from the vat. I'm not usually a white drinker but the Rizza went down a treat and we did the usual exchange of cash for a bottle.

Our final vineyard for the day was Wolf Blass. The last time I was in the Barossa this was the first winery on the list. In retrospect, it was the winery I least liked and a return visit just kinda reaffirmed my thoughts. The wine tasting was more structured and formal. That's not necessarily a bad thing given their large selection of wines. While it wasn't busy in the tasting room, it sure felt like the wine steward wanted to move through all the wines quickly. To boot, none of the wines were to my liking (Too dry? Not to my palate? Devoid of love and hand pruning?) except for the newly released Verae, which is a lightly spritz summer red wine best served chilled.

Of course Moo and I had to re-create each of our pose with the Eaglehawkie.

We enjoyed an alcohol induced nap on the way back to Adelaide and while we were far from hungry, we decided that we'd already gone overboard with the eating and the drinking so having a waffle wouldn't hurt.