Barossa Valley

What Barossa Valley teaches: old vines

Barossa has an important concentration of old, ungrafted vines, including celebrated nineteenth-century blocks. Old vines yield less fruit with more concentration, and the region built its bold Shiraz identity around that vineyard inheritance. The Barossa teaches what age in the vineyard can taste like in the glass.

The wines

Shiraz, deep and generous, from old-vine icons to honest village bottlings. Grenache and Mourvèdre also come from old plantings. The surprise is Eden Valley Riesling, taut and limey, from the hills above.

Where to go

Penfolds offers the Grange story at its Barossa cellar door. Henschke, in the Eden Valley, makes Hill of Grace from vines planted around 1860; book well ahead. Seppeltsfield pours tawny from the year of your birth, a century deep. For the boutique end, Rockford's stone cellars and Turkey Flat's 1847 vineyard show the valley at its most personal.

Eat

Appellation at The Louise is the destination dinner. FermentAsian in Tanunda pairs Vietnamese flavours with old-vine Grenache improbably well. The Barossa Farmers Market on Saturday mornings is the region's pantry, open to all.

Getting there

An hour northeast of Adelaide. Combine with McLaren Vale and the Adelaide Hills for South Australia's full hand.