By Sharon Kneebone
In 1999 we returned to South Australia to visit my husband’s
family and ring in the new Millennium.
For those fans of big, bold
Australian red wines you most likely know that South Australia is home to the
Barossa Valley and the McLaren Vale.
My in-laws live about 20 minutes from the beautiful Barossa and about 40
minutes north of the McLaren Vale.
We had been to the Barossa a couple of times and wanted to visit a
different wine region. We left the
kids with Nana and Papa and headed south for a couple days away.
Sharon & Scott Kneebone
We stayed at the Inn at the McLarens, just down the street from
the McLaren Vale Visitor Center. The Inn was the quintessential Aussie motel
complete with inexpensive spacious rooms and a tin roof. It was a great staging area to visit
the vale’s cellar doors. We spent
the day sampling wines of the vale with a stop at Chapel Hill Cellar Door, a
lovely sampling room set in a converted Australian chapel.
The Inn at the McLarens
One of our favorite wineries is Tintara, part of the Hardys family. We purchased the Hardys world class
Whiskers Blake Port there and have shared it judiciously with our close
friends. One of our favorite
Shiraz wines is Tintara. It is a
full-bodied bold Aussie wine that is characteristic of the McLaren Vale
region. By far, our favorite wine
maker from the McLaren Vale is Molly Dooker. It is now widely available in the States and we’ve
introduced it to all of our friends.
After a full day of touring the vale we had a wonderful dinner
at the Barn Bistro. One of the
specials that evening was Kangaroo Steak cooked to perfection. The Barn is a historic building housing
a fine Australian Restaurant in the McLaren Vale. Far and away, my favorite
site was cresting a hill with sloping vines to my left, a kangaroo bounding
between the rows, and the sight of the ocean in the distance.
My favorite view – the ocean is
off to the right.
The trek to the McLaren Vale is well worth the time, expense
and effort. Some of the world’s
greatest Shiraz wines come from the area with an abundance of fresh Australian
food.
"It
is an ideal spot, and the ideal liquid inspiration, to try to figure out a way
to live near this tiny piece of paradise between the voluptuous hills of wine
and the aquamarine sea." --The Wine Roads of Australia
by Susan Gough Henly
Sharon and Scott Kneebone
live in Baltimore, Maryland with their 2 children. Besides Shiraz, they like lacrosse, musical theatre, and
entertaining friends.
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