The Cellar Door Wine Festival Adelaide 2013 was officially launched on Feb 22 and run over 3 days during the weekend. It is the largest of its kind in Australia has won numerous awards. The festival was located in our famous Adelaide Convention Center, where visitors can enjoy both the wine and the scenic views of River Torrens.
In the previous post, I talked about the VIP event of the cellar door wine festival this year and the importance of food tourism. After the VIP session, we were admitted to the official venue. Same as last year, included in the ticket, all visitors got a Riedel wine glass and their wine “passport” with the map of the venue and the location of different wine regions.
Now, it’s time to talk about the wineries and foods. Due to the large number of wineries participated in the event, obviously I can’t go into details on every single one of them. The followings are what I really liked on the day.
Penfolds – Magill and Barossa Valley
Believe me or not, I am a huge fan of Penfolds. I know some people may think I am old fashioned but seriously, don’t you feel some of the shiraz from Penfolds were top in the country?
Penfolds brought with them their Grange and visitors could taste it for $50. I didn’t taste unfortunately and I’ll have to leave this delicacy til later ~ LOL
Wolf Blass – Barossa Valley
To be honest, I am not really into the low end wines of Wolf Blass, but their black and platinum labels were among my preferred wines. The taste on palate were so complex and will develop with careful cellaring. Visitors who sign up to their newsletters can taste the black label, which normally costs around $10 at their cellar door.
Seppeltsfield – Barossa Valley
Seppeltsfield is probably the most renowned winery for making ports and fortified wines. Visitors to their cellar door can even purchase a wine born in the same year as them. Their fortified were high in alcohol content, making it perfect for desserts.
d’Arenberg – McLAren Vale
Although the Dead Arm of d’Arenberg is famous, I like their sticky better. Their Nobel Riesling is a very good sticky and is not too strong in ethanol content, but sweet enough and provides many complexity of the wine aroma.
Wirra Wirra Vineyards – McLaren Vale
Honestly, I haven’t had wines from this winery for about 6-7 years. In my undergraduate time, I use to get their cheap wines to please my girlfriend, who is now my wife. Although I drank a lot of their low end wines, I didn’t enjoy much by then. However, this time at the festival I tasted their mid range wines and they were okay for everyday drinking.
Hardy’s Tintara – McLaren Vale
In fact, I never liked the wines offered at the Hardy’s Cellar doors but the Tintara for me is a new adventure. The cab. sauv. was very nice with depth in flavour and complexity in aroma.
Tim Adams Clare Valley
I didn’t have much experience with this winery but all the ones that I’ve tasted were decent for daily drinking purposes.
Annie’s Lane – Clare Valley
Rieslings from Annie’s Lane were a specialty. I especially enjoy the Cooper Trail Riesling, which is really a star in the riesling range.
My fav. boutique beers from SA!
This year, there was a “New Producer’s Area” , which brought many of the emerging SA food producers together for festival visitors to enjoy all at once. The quality of food were generally very good, but as I stated previously, I’ll just put the ones I liked the most up.
These gourmet chocolate bars were hand made here in Adelaide and the tastes were even more fantastic. With sourness and sweetness from the berries, the hot flavour from chilli and the bitterness from chocolates, the bar really combined all tastes very well and produced a harmony experience. Recommended!
Oh, gosh! This is probably one of the best toffees I tasted in many years. The toffee were rich in flavour and easy to bite. Your can experience the richness and subtle and fine texture even from the very first bite!
This stall offered a large range of Mediterranean influenced spices. Yummo!
Kangaroo Island Farmer’s Market
This stall offered specialty cheeses, lamb chorizo and small tasting dishes. which were all quite different from what we normally taste.
My good ol’ place for cheeses!
My fav. producer for smallgoods in SA
See what I have brought back home from the Festival.
Lamb chorizo, Island Pure Haloumi and ChocoMe Bars
The lamb chorizo should be cooked before eating, otherwise the game taste was too strong. The haloumi can be pan fried and the saltiness was just perfect to complement light dishes.
Both of the ChocoMe bars had sensational tastes as I stated previously.
Lots of readings!
Enjoy some of the best SA food and wines!
Foodies Cucina - Food and Travel Blog, Canberra 
I learned wine making at uni and I like this event. Thanks for the review.
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Glad to see you enjoy some good Aussie wines!
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They had this event for about 3 years now. I’ve been to the first one but would love to go to the next year’s event.
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Was reading my posts the other day and found you left a comment last year as well. Thanks for continued support.
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