We found ourselves in the Clare Valley just North of Adelaide. The Clare Valley itself is very beautiful. It is green, surprisingly hilly and dotted with sheep in fields and there are of course, many vineyards. It reminded me a bit of parts of Kent in the UK. And it was so different from the desert landscapes that we had just left behind. There are acres of neat vines clustered around the small villages. And many beautiful tall trees which shimmer in the wind.
We decided that it would be fun to cycle along the Riesling Trail from Auburn to Clare. We picked up our bikes from the very friendly Auburn Caravan Park and we opted for the less expensive push bikes rather than the classier battery assisted options. (A fact that we later would regret).
We envisaged cycling along the old train track, now a cycling route, calling in at various cellar doors and sampling as we passed through.
I was a bit concerned about the wind, which was picking up and the fact that we seemed to be going uphill for the first 20 kilometers! My very optimistic husband thought the exercise would be good for us. We were buoyed by the thought of a good lunch at Skillogallee Wines at Sevenhill. And it all started so well!
However, Jim struggled to stay upright and we both struggled with the uphill gradient and the wind. Whilst we were taking one of our many pauses, a couple stopped to ask after our welfare! (Jim was sitting on the ground at this point).
They were cycling the whole trail both ways, without batteries. We detected English accents and although they were Australians we discovered that the husband came from Peckham in South East London. This delighted us as Jim and I had both worked in Peckham and the children all now live there as do some of the Cousins! They were surprised to learn that it had become a bit trendy and arty. Still all this chat was not helping our slow progress.
After about 10 kilometers and at least an hour and a half of peddling, we had not visited a single cellar door and we had to forgo our coffee break. We gradually realised that we were not even going to make our lunch date at all. The plan was falling apart and we were disheartened.
So we made a strategic decision to return to base (downhill and with the wind) and abandon the bikes in favour of a dash up the valley in the van, to ensure we did not miss our planned lunch at Skillogallee! (No contest really).
And all was well that ended well. Jim felt that we now deserved our lunch. Plus it was really good and we had a small quantity of wine with our lunch time tasting platter. A Riesling, a Grenache, a Shiraz and a Muscat. (I had rather more than Jim as he opted to drive).
After lunch we decided we really had to visit a second Cellar Door and we chose the Sevenhill Cellars. This was a lovely spot and was the first winery in the valley, founded by a Jesuit Monk in 1851. Originally the vineyards were used to produce sacramental wine and indeed, still to this day much of the sacramental wine used in South Australia comes from Sevenhill. In addition to the Sacramental wine, the monks produced fine wines for sale. And these were the first vineyards in Clare Valley. Now there are many fine Shiraz wines and Rieslings in the valley.
The Cellar has a very welcoming policy and visitors are free to inspect the cellars and the grounds which include an old church, St Aloysius’ Church. If we had had more time we could easily have spent more time there both sampling their wines and exploring the estate with the help of their heritage trail which documents the origins of the community and the struggles of the early settlers, including the Priests.
Now the Jesuits still own the establishment and still oversea the business but the winegrowers are no longer winemaking Priests. The old buildings on the site today are used for retreats, events and functions and these sit alongside the commercial winery.
The wines here are of a high quality and I regret not visiting more, especially the Grosset Wines in Auburn which have a fine pedigree. Still, a good reason to return to Adelaide and its wine regions in the future! Now we needed to do some chores in town. It was now many weeks and many kilometers since we had last been in Sydney or Brisbane or any large town at all!
