Pop quiz time: what's the capital of South Australia?
If you answered Adelaide, you are correct. If you answered that you didn't know there was a state called South Australia, I'm sure you aren't alone. After spending a long weekend in South Australia, it's a shame that so few people know that it exists, although I imagine the residents would like to keep it that way to allow it to maintain it's small-town charm and natural beauty.
Linnea and I recently flew into Adelaide on a Friday morning for a long weekend. Adelaide itself is a fairly small city without much for tourists, so we didn't spend much time there. Once we made a very important pit stop at my favourite Australian brewery (Pirate Life), which is located in Adelaide, we headed toward our home for the weekend: McLaren Vale, a wine region ~45 minutes from Adelaide. McLaren Vale is widely-regarded as one of the top wine regions in Australia. This is a fact that may be a bit lost on Linnea and me because we aren't exactly wine experts, but we were excited nonetheless. We were also excited for our accommodation, which we found on Airbnb. We stayed at a shearing shed that had been converted into a small cabin with modern amenities while maintaining an old school, rustic charm on the property of winery owners. See below for a couple of pictures of the place; in the photo on the top you can see the view of the front door of the shed, including the vineyard (far right side of the photo), and in the photo on the bottom you can see what the interior looks like.
Being on the property of winery owners, we had access to things that we don't usually have access to as city-dwellers. In the mornings, we went to the chicken coop and grabbed a few freshly-laid eggs to be eaten for breakfast. In the evenings, we went for a walk to the top of a hill on the property to enjoy the view of the sun setting across the rolling hills and over the ocean. This walk felt especially Australian when we caught a glimpse of two kangaroos hopping through the tall grass over the hill, frightened by our presence.
Because McLaren Vale is a wine region, there were a lot of wine-centric activities on our agenda. However, wine wasn't the only thing that we did. We wandered through a Saturday morning farmer's market, enjoyed a coffee at a local coffee roaster, and went for a long walk on the beach. Not that I wasn't already aware of it, but this beach walk confirmed that Minnesotan skin does not do well in Australian sun. We spent about 2 hours on the beach on a mostly sunny day and my neck got sunburned. I won't forget sunscreen (or "sun cream" as Aussies call it) next time.
While not everything we chose to do was guided by wine, it was difficult to get away from it (not that we wanted to). At dinner one night, a friendly waiter who I had chatted with earlier in the night offered me a “symbol of good international relations.” When I looked confused about this offer, he explained that he meant that he wanted to give Linnea and me a free glass of wine. We happily allowed him to top up our glasses. This was the finishing touch on one of my favourite dinner experiences in memory. We arrived at Russell’s Pizza in Wilunga without a booking on a Friday night at dinner time. At first glance, this was a mistake because the place was packed. However, they had a fire outside and it was the perfect kind of chilly night where sitting around a fire feels just right. We ended up spending hours sitting by the fire, eating pizza, drinking wine, and chatting with the couple who sat down next to us. They were locals and sitting next to them demonstrated that Adelaide, while being a capital city, is a small town at heart. Multiple times they stopped mid-conversation to say hello to someone walking past who they knew from school or growing up. This small-town feeling was compounded by the fact that we saw them the next morning out for a stroll at the farmer’s market.
Throughout the trip, we visited 6 wineries: Dogridge, Gemtree, Alpha Box & Dice, d’Arenberg, Hugo, and Penny’s Hill. They all made delicious wine and had their own unique approach to winemaking. They all came off as passionate about what they were doing and were happy to answer any questions (however elementary they may have been) that I had. Going into the trip, I thought that some of the wineries would feel more like Anheiser Busch than Ale Asylum, but that wasn’t the case at all; I enjoyed that these wineries felt like the small, family-run businesses that they are instead of feeling like corporations. In fact, visiting Alpha Box & Dice felt like a visit to a craft brewery. I guess what I’m getting at is this: the wineries in McLaren Vale are run and staffed by friendly, regular people instead of wine snobs. They just happen to really, really like wine.
I didn't just learn how to enjoy (which isn't very difficult :) ) and talk about wine. I learned to blend wine and am now officially a winemaker courtesy of the 'blending bench' class at d'Arenberg winery. We were walked through understanding the differences between 3 different red wines and then got the chance to make a few different blends. Once we had made a blend that we liked, we made a bottle of it to take home and save for a special occasion!
On our last night in Adelaide, we went to the end of a pier to enjoy the sunset after walking along the beach. As we were watching the sun drop into the ocean, a couple in their eighties grabbed the spot next to us. After a few minutes of silence, the man decided that he wanted a photo of his wife on the pier at sunset. He pulled out his flip phone and began wrestling with it, attempting to determine how to take a photo. When I noticed him struggling, I offered to take a photo of the two of them. After taking their photo, they thanked me and insisted that they do the same for Linnea and me even though they both said that they "don't know how to use cell phones." After I handed my phone to the woman, her husband warned me that she "always cuts his head off" when she takes photos of him. It turns out the he was right that she tends to cut people's heads off in photos, as you can see below. Even though the photo is blurry and part of my head is missing, I thought there was something so charming about the older couple wanting to do something nice for us, even if it meant they had to use something that they weren't comfortable with to do it.
That's all for now. Cheers and thanks for reading!