Evening all,

 

On the spur of the moment, the wife and I have decided to drive the great ocean road tomorrow. Leaving from Adelaide, we have to visit some family in Mt Gambier and get to Portland by sundown.. which might allow us to visit ONE Coonawarra winery. 

 

So, my question is - if you were able to visit one Coonawarra winery cellar door, which would it be? Wynns? Zema? Any others?

Bowens

Bowen Estate and Majella.

 

 

And tell the family you hit traffic.

Katnook

Coonawarra Wine Gallery - which gives you Lindemans (Pyrus, Limestone Ridge, St George etc), Mildara (old school fav), Roughe Homme (more old school) and Jamiesons Run.

I've enjoyed a wide variety of wines from these guys over the years and have never been disappointed. Your mileage may vary but I'd suggest a quick check out of the local online tourist info and select a winery that produces most of the grape varieties you enjoy the most.

 

Petaluma (pricey) - excellent producer of quality whites.

Katnook Estate - One of my favourite wineries.

Leconfield

Jim Barry - Use to stock their wines when we owned a restaurant in the late 80's / 90's

Brand's Laira

Balnaves

Wynns - Consistently good producer although I think wine maker, John Riddoch has since moved on since I last visited many years ago.

Rymill

Redman

 

As is often the case, cellar door prices are often dearer than what can be obtained from the bigger outlets like Dan Murphys / BWS / First Choice etc

 

Let us know how you get on.

Wynns - Consistently good producer although I think wine maker, John Riddoch has since moved on since I last visited many years ago.

 

That's a joke isn't it?

That's a joke isn't it?

 

I've never had a bad wine from them Rockford. I'm talking from my own experience but yours might be different.

Yes, John Riddoch no longer makes wines for Wynn's since dying in 1901.....

Well my bad. I was under the impression the people we spoke to at the winery were from the Riddoch family so assumed he was still around.

 

You learn something every day.

Well my bad. I was under the impression the people we spoke to at the winery were from the Riddoch family so assumed he was still around.

 

You learn something every day.

 

All good. I wasn't sure if you were having a wink-wink, nudge-nudge type of joke, but obviously not. Wynns create good/great wines, although TWE have set the pricing structure on them to be way over their value imho. The Black Label is some of the best long-lived bargain-priced wines in the country. 

All good. I wasn't sure if you were having a wink-wink, nudge-nudge type of joke, but obviously not. Wynns create good/great wines, although TWE have set the pricing structure on them to be way over their value imho. The Black Label is some of the best long-lived bargain-priced wines in the country. 

Agree whole heartedly! I remember a number of years ago the wife and some friends were travelling through the Ballandean winery area west of Brisbane and could not believe our eyes when we saw so many of the bus tourists chomping on some vile and disgusting white wine, (can't recall what it was), to which we responded, "well then let's just see what we brought along in case we didn't like what was on offer". Out pops a rather tasty little bottle of Wynns Cab Sauv from about the 2004 vintage. Needless to say, we demolished it in mere minutes. So nice!

 

Their pricing has admittedly always been above the average and when we stocked them in our restaurant, we always had to charge a slight premium over the more main stream varieties.

 

(I should also add however, that the wines from this region have improved immensly but are still a little short of what is available from Margaret River / Clare Valley / Barossa / Coonawarra etc.

 

Cheers,

 

Prog

Well, after the wife forgot her bloody SLR camera and we had to drive 30 mins back home to get it, we ran out of time to visit ANY winery. Balls!!

The highway that runs through the Coonawarra is called Riddoch Highway, I wonder if it's named after the Wynns fella? Driving through there, it's obvious when you reach Coonawarra territory as the soil on the side of the road and in the vineyards either side of the highway becomes very red. There was even a little bit of earthmoving by the side of the road at one point and it was clear to see the layers of the Terra Rossa soil with the limestone directly underneath. I found it interesting, the wife did not. Ha.

We visited Timboon distillery today, I picked up a bottle of their single malt. Quite tasty.

Hope to get to a couple of breweries here in Vic tomorrow, not holding my breath though as our schedule is pretty packed.

Edited September 23, 201411 yr by mikizee

Im thinking of doing a similar tour in late February. 

 

In a former job i used to travel to Mt Gambier every 4-6 weeks. I loved those trips, the Coonawarra region is beautiful. The Coorong on the other hand offered no excitement

 

The forests around Mt Gambier were always more interesting to me though, so much destruction, yet you can see it all grow again as the years went on 

The Coorong must have been amazing 30-40 yrs ago, it sure looked it on Storm Boy