A few weeks ago I awoke extremely early for a Sunday morning and headed out to McLaren Vale with a great group of friends to celebrate C's 33rd Birthday. Our first stop was d'Arenberg
d'Arenberg is located in a beautiful building, surrounded by vines. the Building is split in two, Restaurant on one side and most importantly the cellar door on the other. The cellar door is warmed by an open fire and has a very long bar to cater for the many samplers.
I've never seen so many wines on tasting in one cellar door. We did our best to try them all but with a whole day of wine drinking(ahem, Tasting) ahead after trying most of the whites I cherry picked a few reds to try.
I had a wonderful Idea that I would photograph all the really tasty ones and then I would have a record of which ones I liked!! The first to get photoed was the feral fox, Pinot Noir. Unfortunately my plan went out the window here as I took the photo before I tried it! The label was just so pretty.
It's strange, after years of buying cheap wine in bottle shops I had decided that the prettier the label the worse the wine (The worst wine I ever tried was in Edinburgh, I can't remember the name but it came in a metallic pink bottle and had a silhouette of a girl dancing, Very cool bottle very bad wine). If it's a good wine it doesn't need a fancy label to sell it.
I'm not sure if that works in Australia. This wine was tasty and the penguin wine guide gave it 91 points which is apparently a good thing.
Next up was The Wild Pixie, (95% Shiraz, 5% Roussanne) I'd never heard of the Roussanne grape before, I liked it. I also liked that the fruit are foot trod! just think of those purple toes!
This was my favorite from d'Arenberg The Derelict Vineyard, Grenache.
This was light and tasty with flavours that made your mouth watter. A vineyard was discovered overgrown and unattended, the vine was nursed back to life and this is the wine it produces. mmmm.
Lastly who can go past a bubbly red. Peppermint Paddock fills you with bubbles perfect on a summers day or in this case a cold autumns day warming up by the fire.
Thanks to Robyn's Southern Spirit Tours who were our guides and Drivers. Everyone had a great day definitely one to do again.
