WTF – Not what you think - AdventureRiderMagazine

This entry is part 6 of 16 in the series Adventure Rider Issue #19

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Wine trail to the Flinders

If you live in Victoria, ride an adventure bike and want to visit the Flinders Ranges, which way do you go? The direct route via the Danggali National Park is sandy and might deter some big bike owners. The highway is boring. What about using local knowledge of the backroads and maybe visiting a few wine regions on the way? Kym Stock has some ideas.

This magazine’s publisher organised an ‘ADV de Wineries’ in issue #08, and it wasn’t bad for a first attempt.

I wanted to work out a DIY wine tour that covered some must-visit wineries and some great scenery connected by interesting backtracks (and be better than Kurt’s effort).

To find the roads less travelled between Melbourne and Adelaide a quick search on www.transaustraliatrail.com.au – TauT – resulted in several use-ful routes from central Victoria’s Pyrenees Wine Region to the Coonawarra region just over the SA border, then up towards Adelaide via the Coorong National Park and then on to the Clare Valley. These routes took in several wine-growing areas, some established and some just starting to become well known.

I asked for help from the Green Triangle adventure riders (GTR) group from www.advrider.com, and having a winemaker in the group made identifying the leading wineries a simple task. Bruce Gregory’s BMW F800GS has wine racks in the panniers, and every-one likes camping with Bruce!

The plan was to meet at Moonambel Pub and visit the Pyrenees Ranges wineries. Plans have a habit of not working 100 per cent and this time I began the pre-ride alone. Just me, my Tiger 800 and my SPOT tracker.

I’d allowed 12 days for the ride, alternating between one day riding and the next day wine tasting.

Bruce (left) and Jon at Mclaren Vale.
You’d be smiling, too. It’s probably the third or fourth winery of the day.
A big ol’ wine vat. Timber is important to flavour.

On track

Moonambel was a thriving town of 40,000 people during the 1800’s goldrush era, but now has only 140 residents. It’s situated among picturesque rolling hills of central Victoria, and using the Moonambel Resort Hotel as a base, the first winery visited was the Warrenmang Resort. It truly is a resort with fine dining, cabins and tennis courts, as well as the wine-tasting room.

I learned my first lesson about wine tasting: wineries keep civilised hours and usually don’t open until 11:00am. I took the opportunity to enjoy a coffee and read the newspapers in the comfortable bar area.

Once my caffeine fix was finished, I rode out to the next valley to taste at Dalwhinnie Wines and Taltarni Wines.

Dalwhinnie is a modern construction at the end of the valley and I was the sole customer. The grounds looked like a perfect setting for a grasstrack motocross. Taltarni was a hive of activity as its annual ‘Long Lunch’ was being held the next day. I was impressed with the wines at Taltarni and joined the club, which gives me discounts and information via email about product releases. I then made a brief stop back in downtown Moonambel at the Summerfield winery. It’s not nearly as grand as the other cellar-door facilities, but it does offer gourmet food as well.

Mounting up again I took the adventure option to ride over to the Blue Pyrenees winery via backroad tracks.

Jon, Greg and author Kym enjoy a swill-andspit at Chapel Hills. The idea is to taste, not drink.

Spitting image

The cellar-door attendant was very happy to show me around the bottling facility after sampling the latest vintages. Some wineries spend a lot of effort on their grounds and Blue Pyrenees is a green oasis.

The next stop was for lunch at Sally’s Paddock wines in Redbank. They’ve gone for the rustic look at this place, rather than oasis-style, and I had a wonderful ploughman’s lunch and a glass of their finest Shiraz. Sitting outside in the sun was very pleasant indeed.

Suitably refreshed I set off towards Great Western using backroads.

Before you think I would have to be pissed by now, (ie: over the legal blood/alcohol limit) I’d probably only consumed the equivalent of two glasses of wine all day. The sidebar on cellar-door etiquette will explain all about spitting out the wine and rinsing with water between tastes.

Spitting out really high-quality reds is very hard to do at times.

A little multitasking for the winery ag machinery. When not actually working in the fields the tractor can double as a sign.

End of the road

Great Western is known for its sparkling white wine production by Seppelt. It’s not really a touristy town with just a basic pub and motel on the main highway between Adelaide and Melbourne. During the night I calculated one B-double truck went through town every 20 seconds.

After an egg-and-bacon sandwich from the shop I waited for the arrival of Tori Dunn, a keen rider from the Grampians region who’s getting back into bikes after a 20-year break. Following my GPS plot (see the ‘how to’ article in issue 11), we set off down the east side of the Grampians looking for the turn-off to Mt. William picnic ground.

Once off the main dirt road the tracks became narrower and started to climb.

We were on ’roo alert and dodging emus even though it was 11:00am.

Author Kym at Seppeltsfield in the Barossa Valley. Looking forward to a Tawny or two.

We went west over the passes in the Grampians and wound our way around on dirt roads, stopping occasionally to admire the view. On the far side of the range I came to the end of my GPS track.

I must’ve missed transferring the next section from Basecamp, so we had to do a little exploring – Plan Error #02. Trying to skirt south of the Rocklands reservoir we came to a dead end where blue gums had been planted – PE #03 – and roads on OZtopo no longer existed.

Once past Balmoral we were on a mission to find lunch at the Pub In The Scrub in Dergholm. We rode some shallow sand tracks just outside of town, but were soon enjoying food and drink at the pub and refuelled the bikes after 280km. After a rest we set off into SA, crossing the border near Penola.

Meechi Brewery in the Langhorne Creek wine region, Murray River, SA, offers a palate contrast.

Make a point

Jon Deakin had ridden his V-Strom 650 from Adelaide and we met him at the Backpacker’s Lodge in central Penola.

The lodge met our needs well and was within staggering distance of the pubs.

We conversed with the German tourists and, after a ’roo-steak meal, we turned in for the evening. Trying to behave like gentlemen, we had a leisurely breakfast before starting our winery tasting day.

We were spoiled by Bruce at Majella Wines. He gave us a full tour of the facility, explaining the process of wine making as he went.

Having travelled with Bruce I knew he was OCD by nature. His work-place is spotless and well organised. Tasting, spitting and rinsing was the order of the day as we visited the other wineries nearby. Bruce gave me a Majella hat he insisted I wore in all the other wineries and I got some good-natured flack from the other cellar-door staff. Tori couldn’t imbibe because of her licence restrictions, but she enjoyed sniffing the wines.

I don’t think we experienced any anti-biker discrimination from any of the staff. The Coonawarra does tourism very well with a spirit of regional co-operation.

They have some well-designed cellar door facilities, but the staff’s welcoming attitude makes or breaks the customer’s experience. Lunch was pizza at Oteliers in the Coonawarra township and one glass of their wine was our limit with lunch; it was very good indeed!

I weakened at Brand’s Laira and ordered a box of wine, which will earn brownie points with my wife.

Bolted

Next day Jon and I set off towards the coast via Millicent. The route took us through some winding roads into dairy and timber country and some dirt roads that paralleled the coast. The weather had turned cooler and it rained a little. They don’t call it The Green Triangle without reason.

It was about then Jon’s gearshift mechanism broke. We diagnosed the problem, jury-rigged a shifter and proceeded with caution into Robe. I booked a room at the Robe Hotel on the foreshore while Robe Auto And Marine drilled out the broken bolt and fitted a workable solution to the gear shifter.

We battled some strong winds to visit the Wangolina and Cape Jaffa wineries. Once again the cellar-door people were very hospitable. We met a fellow Triumph owner working at Cape Jaffa, and we’d noticed quite a few riders work in the wine industry.

I couldn’t resist buying some Wangolina wines to ship home. The Shiraz at Cape Jaffa is great value and is available over the web.

Find of the day was the Robe Town Brewery, a small handmade beer facility.

Marus gave us a tour and a beer tasting, and we took a sample four-pack to enjoy on our balcony at the hotel. Bliss!

The outlook over Guichen Bay is fantastic.

More to come

Plan Error #04 was known before I’d started the ride. My stepfather-in-law had passed away the day before the ride and it was time to return for the funeral.

What we’d achieved was to prove you can do wine tasting on a motorcycle, and we’d recorded a scenic path riders can use to find the wineries and is now listed on TauT.

Finally, we agreed Bruce’s must-visit winery list is very good, but it’s not necessary to try all five listed wineries in one day. Sensory taste overload can occur and riders get tired of gearing up so often. For a small fee most wineries will freight home boxes of wine purchased, and they all seem to have membership deals that offer discounts and e-mail updates on their products.

I look forward to finishing part two of the Wine Trail to the Flinders sometime in the future.

Winery cellar door etiquette

Cellar door sales are great for a number of reasons: you can taste the wines before you buy them and you can often get wines unavailable anywhere else.

Tasting and buying wine in a cellar-door environment is a little different to browsing in a shop. Here are a few tips…

• Very few wineries are located anywhere near public transport, so you have to transport yourself around. You have to be very careful about the quantity you drink
• Four or five wineries in a day is a sensible number
• Don’t wear strong aftershave or perfume as fragrances obscure the scent of the wine and will hang around for ages after you’re gone to obscure the smell of the wine for everyone following you
• Don’t be afraid to ask questions. The people who work in cellar doors are usually knowledgeable about wine, especially what they’re selling
• Don’t be afraid to spit. Cellar doors always provide something for this purpose. You’re there to taste, not drink

Must-visit wineries

Pyrenees wine region, central Victoria

• Blue Pyrenees
• Summerfield
• Warrenmang
• Taltarni
• Redbank
• Dalwhinnie

Coonawarra wine region, south-east SA

• Balnaves
• Majella
• Wynns
• Brands
• Rymill

Limestone Coast wine region, coastal SA

• Wangolina Station
• Cape Jaffa Wines

Langhorne Creek wine region, Murray River, SA

• Lake Breeze
• Bleasdale
• Bremerton
• Wine House cellar door and function centre

McLaren Vale Wine region, Adelaide, SA

• D’Arenberg
• Kay Brothers
• Coriole
• K1 Geoff Hardy
• Wirra Wirra
• Chapel Hill

Adelaide Hills region, SA

• Lobethal Bierhaus
• Hahndorf Hill wines
• Chain of Ponds winery

Barossa Valley region, Adelaide, SA

• Henschke
• Chateau Tanunda
• Chateau Yaldara
• Yalumba
• Sepptlesfield
• Rockford

Clare Valley region, mid-north SA

• Jeanerette
• Jim Barry
• Skillogallee
• Paulett
• O’Leary Walker
• Eden Valley region
• Thorn-Clarke
• Eden Valley wines
• Irvine Wines
• Riley’s Wines
• Sorby Adams

Download maps on the internet of each region for directions to the wineries or visit local information centres.

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