A brief foray into McLaren Vale

Safe in the knowledge that we were in good and expert hands we allowed ourselves to be introduced to the McLaren Vale wine district by Tina and Ian. The tourist blurb suggests that there are in excess of 70 cellar doors in this internationally known wine district of South Australia which is a mere 35km south of Adelaide.

We were loosely aware that McLaren vale was experiencing pressure from urban expansion and we were really quite shocked that housing really is encroaching on this unique wine terrain as Adelaide spreads relentlessly southwards along the coast. Perhaps our expectations were coloured by our own experiences of the WA Margaret River and Mt Barker wine regions which are well and truly rural and never considered as a day trip from Perth. A weekender maybe. So, McLaren Vale is more like a Caversham/ Swan Valley scenario for Perth people. Without doubt this area will be busy on weekends but luckily we visited midweek.

With so many potential wineries to visit we were delighted for Ian to take the lead. He is from a wine making family and knew people everywhere we went. We visited Dog Ridge, Coriole and Woodstock.

The Coriole Cellar Door is in an historic ironstone barn built in 1860.

Very charming.

 The Bloke promised to be good and escaped a spell in the stocks at Woodstock.

We were troubled by the 5 holes!

We stopped for lunch at the Blessed Cheese in McLaren Vale township where I ordered baked brie on sour dough toast with a rocket and prosciutto salad. I hadn't factored on being served a whole brie and shared a good portion of this with the others. It was hot and the cheese burst open like lava from a volcano - it was gorgeous. The presence of the remnants of the brie on my palate had a massive impact on my subsequent wine tasting. The majority of the wine we drink is with cheese at Fivers but in this instance the combination didn't work. So strange, but the wallet was the winner! 

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