We had a free morning to sleep in, eat breakfast and shop in downtown McLaren Vale. Several of us went to the Bloke Shop to purchase the requisite Rossi boots and by the time we knew it we were back on the bus and headed to Clarendon- the home of the ubiquitous Hickinbothams. We took at bus tour of the Hickinbotham vineyards and ended up at David’s father’s house overlooking the vineyards. I thought the Kay’s had the best view until we got to this place- wow. We had a tasting of their own Clarendon labeled wines followed by an immense array of foodstuffs for lunch. The generosity of the people we met can not be translated into words.
After lunch we drove down to the local fotty field for a friendly game of full contact footy (slang for Australian Rules Football- not rugby). After a few drills to get down the basics we picked teams and played a game. Our Paringa team was victorious but it took about an hour for the headache and burning lungs to go away. Luckily cold Cooper’s was not far away.
Do not pass Go and proceed directly to meet Justin McNamee at Samuel’s Gorge for a vineyard tour and tasting. We had a barrel tasting of many, many blending components for the Samuel’s Gorge Shiraz, Grenache and Tempranillo wines. We finished the tasting with the 2004 new releases of the same. This is a winery to watch.
2004 Samuel's Gorge Shiraz
2004 Samuel's Gorge Grenache
2004 Samuel's Gorge Tempranillo
On to one of my most anticipated visits of the trip- Russell Jeavon’s Pizza. This now world famous wood-fired oven pizza place is normally open one night a week- Friday night- and reservations are hard to come by. Russell’s place is very rustic and everything is cooked in the wood-fired brick ovens- bread, pizzas and some amazing desserts. We had the whole place rented out for our group and we were accompanied by all of the McLaren Vale producers who all brought plenty of wine to drink. The pizzas lived up to their billing and we finished the night with plenty of Cooper’s and dancing to DJ Darky aka Frano Farroch.
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