Tuesday, August 15th- Burge, TJ, Rockford, Hare's Chase

Depart hotel for the Barossa and travel 50 mins to the first stop at Burge Family Winemakers. Rick has a beautiful tasting room/cellar door and provided a great vineyard tour. When looking at the Burge property from the street the Olive Hill paddock is on the right and the Draycott paddock is on the left- the vineyards are 10 acres each.
Burge is 100% biodynamic and dry-grown.

Tasted were…
2005 Olive Hill Semillon
2000 Olive Hill Semillon
2004 Clochemerle Grenache-Shiraz-Mataro
2004 Grenacha Dry Grown Grenache
2004 Homestead Blend Cabernet-Shiraz
2004 D&OH Grenache-Shiraz-Mataro
2004 Draycott Shiraz
2003 Vintage Port
Wilsford Old Barossa Tawny


On to Trevor Jones Fine Wines for a brief visit as Trevor was out of the country. He was there in effigy though. We were lead on a tour of the winery by the winemaker Matt Reynolds and then tastes through the new releases.

2005 Virgin Chardonnay
2005 Boots White
2005 Boots Grenache
2003 Drygrown Shiraz
2003 Wild Witch Shiraz











On to Rockford and tasting and tour of the winery lead by Robert O’Callahan. All winemaking at Rockford is by traditional method and many of the Barossa’s new superstar winemakers trained under Robert at Rockford (including Chris Ringland, Christian Canute, etc.). 2007 will be Robert’s 42nd vintage. Rockford is a cult wine in Australia and very little is imported into the USA.
We had a tasting at the winery and then took the bus over the Barossa Ranges from the Barossa Valley into the Eden Valley where Robert has a 2 acre organic vegetable farm. The farm is harvested two times a week for special lunches that are cooked for Rockford’s mailing list customers. We were lucky enough to have one of these lunches prepared for our group- it was some of the best food on the trip and included an amazing goose cassoulet (pictured below).

Tasted at the winery were…
2002 Semillon
2001 Moppa Springs (GSM)
2002 Cabernet
2003 Basket Press Shiraz

Drank with lunch were…
1999 Semillon
2003 Semillon
1998 Moppa Springs (magnum)
1996 Basket Press Shiraz
1987 Basket Press Shiraz
NV PS Marion Tawny Port















On to the Barossa Novotel hotel to check-in and then get back on the bus for a brief ride to Hare’s Chase. Hare’s Chase is a partnership between winemaker Peter Taylor and businessman Mike de la Haye. Peter is one of the most power corporate winemakers in the world as chief winemaker for Southcorp- he also used to make Penfolds Grange. When Peter and Mike started their own label on the side they chose Dan Philips as the importer. We had a tour, tasting and bbq at their winery/estate vineyard in the Marananga region of the Barossa Valley.

Tasted were…
2005 Hare’s Chase Blend
2004 Shiraz
2003 Shiraz
2002 Shiraz
2005 Tempranillo (private bottling for Peter & Mike)
2006 Blend Elements from Barrel
Cabernet-Cab Franc
Tempranillo
Shiraz