We paid for a guided tour of some of the vineyards.  We were the only two people on the trip that day.  Got blotto and bought a lot of expensive wine.  First stop was Chateau Tanunda which had been up for sale for several years before the guy who invented the round teabag came past on a cycling holiday and bought the estate.  He refurbished the main building and bought other vineyards.  The inside was huge warehouse, above was a ballroom. 

Paul and I outside the building.

Chateau Tanunda also use the grapes from about 10 other local vine growers in their blends.  We spent 2 hours here, much to our guides chagrin as we just happened to meet the managing director and then one of the wine blenders.  Paul was in his element telling his ‘it doesn’t’ travel well’ joke.  The bloke who owns it is also mad about cricket so built a cricket oval out back.  Apparently the Australian and British teams will come play a game and taste the wine.  Lots of vines have yet to go dormant so they haven’t been pruned.

As a result the rows all look a bit of a mess.

We bought some mega expensive wine at Chateau Tanunda although not as much as we bought from our next stop the Langmeil Winery.  Getting well into the wine tasting and carried away at this stage.  And you cannot waste good wine by spitting it out.  Delivering our case of very expensive wine to Lee and his car.

Looking good after our wine tasting.

This scarecrow didn’t fare as well as that at Jacobs Creek!  Also in the skip are vine cuttings, they had just started to prune some of the vines.

Anyway this winery has the oldest vines in the Barossa – 150 years old.  This is row 22! 

It also had a field of orphan wines which had been transplanted from a field being replaced by housing.  The vines had been put up for adoption and Lee, our guide had purchased one of them for $500 which entitled him to visit his vine as often as he liked, and a bottle of wine from the orphan field every year for 10 years plus a party every year when the vines had been cropped. 

We then had lunch at Grant Burge Wines and more wine.  The wine vats at Grant Burge.

This was followed by more tasting at …. Well gone by this stage, I couldn’t stop yawning, and I can’t remember where we went..  We didn’t buy anymore wine though – thankfully.  Back to the caravan by 1515 and zzzzz by 1530.