May 11th, 2016

Day 43: Chateau Tanunda, Barossa Valley

After a good night’s rest, Lindsay woke up refreshed and ready for some wine! We headed up to the Barossa Valley to visit one winery – a winery that Lindsay was very familiar with from her former job at Banfi – Chateau Tanunda!

Reading the brochures, watching the PowerPoint & videos, even tasting a fair number of the wines, cannot compare with visiting the Chateau in person. The property is absolutely gorgeous – at one time the largest building in South Australia! – with perfect, manicured gardens (apparently they do weddings) and large cricket pitch. Crazy to think at one point, the Chateau was in danger of being torn down before the Geber Family purchased it in the 1980s – it’s truly a regional landmark.

The Chateau!

But enough about the building – we really came here to taste some stellar Australian wines! Sadly, the sparkling wines from Chateau Tanunda are not imported to the USA (blame our silly taxation laws – it prevents a lot of beautiful bubbles from being imported), so Lindsay & Igor were super excited to get a glass each to sip during our VIP tour of the winery.

Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles! I’ll take all the bubbles please.

After the tour, Lindsay & Igor continued tasting through every open bottle of wine that has yet to make it stateside. (In addition to the classic Barossa Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon & Riesling available in the USA, Chateau Tanunda has some lovely small production reds and whites from more esoteric varietals: Old Vine Semillon, a “Three Graces” Rhone-style blend of Viognier, Marsanne & Roussanne, plus “the good stuff” including their Everest range which is the pinnacle of their collection.) Once again remembering smart tasting practices, we ordered a cheese plate to accompany our wine tasting.

Touring the winery with bubbles in hand – checking out the former cement tanks which have been converted into tasting rooms

So many delicious wines to taste – a bit of cheese gives us the strength to taste more!

By a stroke of luck, Michelle Geber happened to be in town when we were at the Chateau, so we were able to catch up during her wee lunch break (as the General Manager for the company, she is a busy lady!). We had so much to catch up on, the time just flew by – we wish we had another night in the area, maybe we would have remembered to take a group photo.

After a full afternoon at the winery, we headed up to Adelaide for the night. We had time for one last sight-seeing stop – the “Whispering Wall” – a curved dam at the Barossa Reservoir with acoustics so amazing, you can literally hear what someone is whispering from 140m away. Igor was convinced they were just using speakers.

Cloudy view of the Barossa from Mengler Hill & Igor walking 140m to the other side of the Whispering Wall

Once we got into the city, we checked into our hotel and wandered the streets for take away to enjoy with a bottle of Chateau Tanunda bubbly – cheers!

Mexican? Chinese? Everything pairs with bubbles!