June 11th, 2010 by harilan
Wicker and wine
Harvest begins in February in the Barossa, when the hills are golden and the grapes are fat on their vines. Before dawn, while it is cool and crisp, machines trundle between the leafy rows, plucking the fruit.
They are still at it an hour before sunrise but everything else is silent – except for a small group of tourists huddled by a heap of yellow nylon in the middle of a field.
The morning quiet is broken by a noisy gust from a petrol-driven fan. The material billows into a giant balloon. Soon, when the nylon is as taut as the skin of a ripe grape, a lick of flame darts from a burner and the balloon heaves into the air, dragging its attached basket upright.
“The rules in a balloon are the same as in any other aircraft,” says our pilot, Justin Stein, his earring flashing in the dark. “That means no smoking, no mobile phones and a bunch of things you’re not allowed to take on board. I trust nobody has a scuba tank stashed in their bag?”
Nobody does so we clamber awkwardly into the basket. Time to go.
Take-off is almost imperceptible. One minute we are moored on the ground and the next we are rising like a bubble.
As the sky turns apricot, a flock of cockatoos hurtles past. The tapestry of red and green rooftops gives way to gum trees and paddocks of sleepy brown cows. In the distance is a patch of olive trees. To the left, a line of sunflowers.
Then, of course, there are the grapevines; rows and rows of them, marching in regiments over the countryside. We see lush green varieties coddled with irrigation and gnarly bush vines with wizened limbs.
“The vineyards here have really increased in the years I’ve been doing this,” Stein says.
“These fields here, I used to be able to land in them. Not any more. They just keep planting more and more vines.”
It is easy to see why. Thanks largely to the thriving wine industry, the Barossa attracts more than 200,000 visitors each year.
Wine is at the heart of everything here. Dirt roads twist through vineyards to quaint cellar doors, where you can sit and sample shiraz, riesling, grenache or viognier.
At restaurants, chefs shape the menu to the wine list, not the other way around. Any hotel worth its bath salts has views over the vines and, at the Novotel Resort’s Endota spa, you can soak in a fragrant brew of grape seed oil and Australian red.
The temperate summers and brown loamy earth mean this place is ideal for making shiraz. At Two Hands Wines, in an old stone cellar that once housed a bakehouse, there are 17 shiraz varieties nestled into wine racks.
“The conditions here are perfect for a gutsy, ballsy shiraz,” says Shannon Kruschel as he takes me through a cellar door masterclass.
“We sell wines from a variety of regions but those full-bodied, rounded shiraz varieties are classic Barossa.”
Down Krondorf Road, at a vineyard dotted with rose bushes and eucalypts, Charlie and Virginia Melton specialise in red wine, from shiraz to grenache to rose.
Charlie, jeans tucked into his gumboots, tells me he arrived in the Barossa while travelling around Australia with a mate. To top up their funds, they took jobs at a local winery. Thirty-five years on, both of them are still here.
“It’s one of those places that grows on you,” he says. “As well as the wine, it’s got a fantastic food history. In the last decade there’s been a real push to recognise the local and regional produce.”
In a 19th-century farmhouse on the banks of Greenock Creek, Hentley Farm winery hosts degustation lunches with wine tastings. The polished wooden table is laden with crystal glasses that bump against each other and sing whenever chef Cole Thomas serves a new dish.
With each course, Thomas points to subtle resonances between the food and wine. There is something smooth and buttery about the viognier that is echoed in the seared scallops with sweet corn, polenta and crumbled popcorn.
Thomas is particularly fond of a seductive, velvety shiraz, matched with chicken and smoked speck. “I find myself constantly dreaming of this wine,” he says. “It’s got this backbone to it. It’s a gorgeous wine to breed food ideas.”
In a place where chefs draw as much inspiration from the cellar as the kitchen, unusual food and wine pairings are common. Appellation, the on-site restaurant at my hotel, The Louise, has a cellar filled with Australian and international labels. To go with a plate of smoked duck breast, liver parfait and rillettes, sommelier Mat McNamara recommends a honey sweet apera, or sherry. A surprising choice but it works.
There are plenty of intriguing options at more casual restaurants, too, such as 1918 Bistro and Grill, a favourite haunt for locals. The wooden verandah that wraps the old stone cottage is a pleasant place to enjoy a local shiraz.
Even the balloon trip includes a nod to the area’s most important industry. When we land 19 kilometres away, bumping into a field of coarse stubble, we will drive back to base at Peter Lehmann winery. There will be a picnic breakfast, courtesy of Stein’s wife, and of course, a glass of sparkling wine.
For now though, we are floating. At times the balloon moves as fast as 35 kilometres an hour but still it feels as though we are gliding on a glassy lake.
With the sun behind us, the balloon casts its silhouette on to a hill up ahead. Below, a harvesting machine is finishing its trek through a vineyard. Soon its catch of grapes will be fermenting while, outside, the vine leaves turn crisp and golden.
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Harvest begins in February in the Barossa, when the hills are golden and the grapes are fat on their vines. Before dawn, while it is cool and crisp, machines trundle between the leafy rows, plucking the fruit.
They are still at it an hour before sunrise but everything else is silent – except for a small group of tourists huddled by a heap of yellow nylon in the middle of a field.
The morning quiet is broken by a noisy gust from a petrol-driven fan. The material billows into a giant balloon. Soon, when the nylon is as taut as the skin of a ripe grape, a lick of flame darts from a burner and the balloon heaves into the air, dragging its attached basket upright.
“The rules in a balloon are the same as in any other aircraft,” says our pilot, Justin Stein, his earring flashing in the dark. “That means no smoking, no mobile phones and a bunch of things you’re not allowed to take on board. I trust nobody has a scuba tank stashed in their bag?”
Nobody does so we clamber awkwardly into the basket. Time to go.
Take-off is almost imperceptible. One minute we are moored on the ground and the next we are rising like a bubble.
As the sky turns apricot, a flock of cockatoos hurtles past. The tapestry of red and green rooftops gives way to gum trees and paddocks of sleepy brown cows. In the distance is a patch of olive trees. To the left, a line of sunflowers.
Then, of course, there are the grapevines; rows and rows of them, marching in regiments over the countryside. We see lush green varieties coddled with irrigation and gnarly bush vines with wizened limbs.
“The vineyards here have really increased in the years I’ve been doing this,” Stein says.
“These fields here, I used to be able to land in them. Not any more. They just keep planting more and more vines.”
It is easy to see why. Thanks largely to the thriving wine industry, the Barossa attracts more than 200,000 visitors each year.
Wine is at the heart of everything here. Dirt roads twist through vineyards to quaint cellar doors, where you can sit and sample shiraz, riesling, grenache or viognier.
At restaurants, chefs shape the menu to the wine list, not the other way around. Any hotel worth its bath salts has views over the vines and, at the Novotel Resort’s Endota spa, you can soak in a fragrant brew of grape seed oil and Australian red.
The temperate summers and brown loamy earth mean this place is ideal for making shiraz. At Two Hands Wines, in an old stone cellar that once housed a bakehouse, there are 17 shiraz varieties nestled into wine racks.
“The conditions here are perfect for a gutsy, ballsy shiraz,” says Shannon Kruschel as he takes me through a cellar door masterclass.
“We sell wines from a variety of regions but those full-bodied, rounded shiraz varieties are classic Barossa.”
Down Krondorf Road, at a vineyard dotted with rose bushes and eucalypts, Charlie and Virginia Melton specialise in red wine, from shiraz to grenache to rose.
Charlie, jeans tucked into his gumboots, tells me he arrived in the Barossa while travelling around Australia with a mate. To top up their funds, they took jobs at a local winery. Thirty-five years on, both of them are still here.
“It’s one of those places that grows on you,” he says. “As well as the wine, it’s got a fantastic food history. In the last decade there’s been a real push to recognise the local and regional produce.”
In a 19th-century farmhouse on the banks of Greenock Creek, Hentley Farm winery hosts degustation lunches with wine tastings. The polished wooden table is laden with crystal glasses that bump against each other and sing whenever chef Cole Thomas serves a new dish.
With each course, Thomas points to subtle resonances between the food and wine. There is something smooth and buttery about the viognier that is echoed in the seared scallops with sweet corn, polenta and crumbled popcorn.
Thomas is particularly fond of a seductive, velvety shiraz, matched with chicken and smoked speck. “I find myself constantly dreaming of this wine,” he says. “It’s got this backbone to it. It’s a gorgeous wine to breed food ideas.”
In a place where chefs draw as much inspiration from the cellar as the kitchen, unusual food and wine pairings are common. Appellation, the on-site restaurant at my hotel, The Louise, has a cellar filled with Australian and international labels. To go with a plate of smoked duck breast, liver parfait and rillettes, sommelier Mat McNamara recommends a honey sweet apera, or sherry. A surprising choice but it works.
There are plenty of intriguing options at more casual restaurants, too, such as 1918 Bistro and Grill, a favourite haunt for locals. The wooden verandah that wraps the old stone cottage is a pleasant place to enjoy a local shiraz.
Even the balloon trip includes a nod to the area’s most important industry. When we land 19 kilometres away, bumping into a field of coarse stubble, we will drive back to base at Peter Lehmann winery. There will be a picnic breakfast, courtesy of Stein’s wife, and of course, a glass of sparkling wine.
For now though, we are floating. At times the balloon moves as fast as 35 kilometres an hour but still it feels as though we are gliding on a glassy lake.
With the sun behind us, the balloon casts its silhouette on to a hill up ahead. Below, a harvesting machine is finishing its trek through a vineyard. Soon its catch of grapes will be fermenting while, outside, the vine leaves turn crisp and golden.
