Clare Valley Personalized Guided Wine Tour

Tour Details

Operator

for Wine or Reason

Destination

Clare Valley

Departs From

Adelaide, Barossa Valley, Glenelg, Fleurieu Peninsula, Clare Valley, Adelaide Hills, McLaren Vale and Hahndorf

Tour Description

The Tour starts from your hotel at 9.15am travelling in a luxury Limousine for a leisurely day at one of Australia’s oldest Wine Regions, the Clare Valley. As we amble our way through the City, your guide will give you a brief description of the history of Adelaide and point out some of the highlights that we may encounter on our journey to Clare (traveling time 1.4 hours). On our journey we will encounter rolling fields with quaint villages dotted with antique shops. Our first stop will be at Auburn where you can participate in a cup of refreshing coffee or tea, perhaps you would just like to stretch your legs before we begin with wine tasting. Wineries we may encounter are Grosset, Taylor’s, O’Leary Walker, Annie’s Lane, Kilakanoon, Mitchell with lunch at Skillogalee. (A main course accompanied with a glass of wine is included in the tour.) After lunch we will continue on to Sevenhill cellar, Pauletts, Pikes, Reilly’s and then onto Tim Gramp. Fancy discovering a new boutique winery or choose your own destinations ~ for Wine or Reason will take you there!! ~ it’s your tour, you choose! Our journey home will lead us in a different direction via Balaklava, Mallala and Two Wells.
(Return to your hotel at approximately 6.30pm.)

It’s your day, enjoy.

Clare Valley is the home of the Australian Riesling and accounts for around 2.5% of the nation’s crush. Its boutique wines however are taking the world by storm! Principal red varieties are Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz. James Halliday (wine critic) compares Clare to Tuscany for its rustic flavour and Mediterranean climate; here you may see Vignerons at work in 150-year-old cellars. Sevenhill cellar is the oldest vineyard in Clare Valley and was settled by Jesuit Priests in 1848 when a small band of Jesuits, fleeing religious persecution in Austria, migrated to the free colony of South Australia. The grapes were originally used to produce sacramental wine - but the current resident Jesuit Brothers don’t take it too seriously. The cellar door now opens on Sunday, visited by more than 40,000 visitors annually and boasts the motto: “Life is too short to drink bad wine”. Handpicking is still common in Clare Valley and small yields are carefully nurtured to harvest. Thirty-six cellar doors are today dotted across the region ~ family run and operated. Most are also small and produce only bottled wine and many also include a not-to-be-missed restaurant dining experience. In the year 2006 Kilikanoon won the trophy for the Best Riesling in the World at the International Wine and Spirits Competition (Mort's Block). Other wineries in the region are Paulett, O'Leary Walker, Mitchell, Jim Barry, Crabtree, Pike, Tim Adams, Reilly’s & Skillogalee to name but a few. Many of the region's best wineries can be found along the Riesling Trail, a 27-kilometre walking and cycling route linking the towns of Auburn and Clare. An old railway line winds through some of South Australia's most stunning wine country and natural bush land, with Mount Horrocks cellar door housed in Auburn’s former railway station.

Whatever the experience ... be prepared for the time of your life!