It was thirsty work, walk through a piece of Henschke history, so when Stephen Henschke uttered those magic words “so how about we go and have a bit of a taste? I’ve opened a bottle of 92 Hill of Grace for us to try…”

Well, it would be rude not to, wouldn’t it?

So we walked over to the barrel hall, where 4 glasses and an open bottle of 92 Grace were waiting. Stephen poured us each a glass, and…

Actually, to put into words the experience would do it no justice, so I’m going to leave you to watch the video.

Of course, to truly share what we shared, you’ll have to sell a couple of pairs of jeans and go and buy yourself a bottle.

Tell Stephen we said hi.

From the moment we started driving up that hill, there was one name that echoed with every the putt of the forty year-old kombi motor, beckoning, tempting…

Henschke… henschke… henschke… henschke… henschke…

For somewhere among the gardens of Eden, up some secret dirt road winding majestically through rolling seas of green, lies the holy grail of sacred sites; the most hallowed ground in the Australian wine world…

Hill of Grace. 

Whisper it. Feel its sibilance.

I’m not a religious man, but as JD and I stood amongst those venerable vines, sculpted and alive, we heard angels sing.

And they sung “you want us, but you can’t afford us…”

Indeed. But as I always say, a German car and a video camera can get you a long way in the Barossa, and we were hoping the same would ring true for the very German legends of Henschke.

Stephen and his son Johann met us at cellar door (and what a beautiful old winery it is!), as we studied the pictures on the wall of 6 generations of Henchkes.

There was the original immigrant – 1^st Generation Johann and his impressive Abraham Lincoln beard, and every patriarch since. There were generations of the Henschke band, Henschke clan pictures, and just gazing at that one wall gave you a sense that this is more than just a landmark brand in Australian wine – this is a family that has shaped this country’s very foundations.

Now for both Justin and myself, the Hill of Grace represented the pinnacle of wine aspiration.

Indeed, as young(er) wine geeks, on a trip to Melbourne with respective girlfriends, instead of forking out $300 for a pair of jeans on Chapel Street, we’d each gone halves in a $500 bottle of 1990 bottle of Hill of Grace at Dan’s, and cracked it that night with a good scotch fillet.

That night, and that purchase, was a seminal moment in both of our wine lives.

My best mate Yelly and I had similarly revered the Mount Edelstone in our early twenties as the bottle we’d splurge on when we were feeling awesome and rich, and continues to this day to evoke memories that make me smile and miss the northern beaches of Sydney where I grew up.

My point is (and I was headed there slowly, thanks for hanging in there) that when I stood there in front of Stephen Henchke, the man himself, I could barely speak.

It was like meeting Billy Joel or something, or Penelope Cruz. I was absolutely star-struck, and that doesn’t happen to me very often.

Thankfully, Stephen indulged my stammering, and he’s such a warm and welcoming man that I soon found my voice, and my feet, and we embarked on a tour of the winery that had stood and operated since the 1860’s.

There were original wooden crushers, wax-lined concrete tanks and open fermenters that had seen decades and decades of wine history.

There were big stone flagons in which the first Henschke wines were bottled and sold to the lucky parishioners by Johann the First.

This was a place of stories, of magic, and Stephen obviously had a love and respect for not only his ancestors but for history itself.

Poor Johann Jnr had the man-flu, so he was suffering quietly, but there was a real sense that he would one day be the caretaker, the curator of all we surveyed.

What a daunting responsibility, but what an opportunity.

And then, as our walk through wine history came to a halt, Stephen uttered those magic words “so how about we go and have a bit of a taste? I’ve opened a bottle of 92 Hill of Grace for us to try…”

(to be continued…)

It started with a message to meet our mate Nuggy at the Eden Valley pub late at night, and ended with… well, you’ll have to wait for that part!

Never ones to shy away from a clandestine meeting, we drove the kombi over to the little pub and walked inside. Six punters were sitting at the bar, including an old friend, Nuggy McLean – something of a local, you might say.

But Nuggy was feeling a bit International Man of Mystery, and wouldn’t tell us what lay in store for us. Nope, he just sculled his pot of ale and told us to follow him in the 4WD.

So into the night we drove…Some half an hour or so later we slowed to a stop on a dirt road in the pitch dark, and we mean pitch dark.

Nuggy got out of his car with a torch, a bucket and a fishing rod. Midnight fishing, Nuggy? Seriously?

Apparently so. So we climbed a wire fence and traipsed across a field or paddock or something (again, in the pitch dark), blindly following our mysterious host, until we came to a lake. Actually it was a dam, but damn, it was a big one, and according to Nuggy, this dam stocked trout.

Awesome. So Justin took the rod and caste the line and we settled in for a spot of poaching.

Now you may be one of those people who goes out fishing and comes back with fish, but I think I speak for both of us when I say that Justin and I are less accustomed to positive results, so when he felt a tug and started reeling in the line, you may have been forgiven for thinking we had won the lotto.

What can we say – it was exciting. It was bloody hilarious. It was a good fish, and no doubt there would be plenty more to come!

That’s when we experienced an unexpected and rather alarming hiccup.

High beams, a distant motor, and a roo-shooting spotlight intruded on our tranquil fishing spot, and suddenly Nuggy didn’t look so relaxed anymore.

We won’t give away any more – suffice to say that things turned nasty and we ended up at Ben and Gill Radford’s place with one dead trout.

But that didn’t matter, because Gill is a mean chef, the Radfords make a mean Rizza, and the great man himself Lord Bob McLean was there on hand with his own amazing Rieslings, and we had a night we shall never forget.

And the scars to prove it!

Though the events of our lat night in the Barossa are patchy, at best, we did wake with vague recollections of skulling port and doing kombi burnouts. And in a macabre mystery best left unsolved, the brains had been mysteriously removed from what was left of the pig.

What a night.

But onwards and upwards, as they say – for a new region and new adventures lay waiting – so it was a quick rinse, coffees at Blond and off we chugged up the hill to Eden Valley.

What were we expecting? Zippy Riesling, spicy Shiraz, certainly, but Australia’s first and most iconic cool climate Chardonnay?

Bring it.

Up and up we drove, until tarmac crumbled to dirt, and before long we were cruising along the hillside, crisp mountain air blowing in through the holes in the floor of the kombi (which is just as well, since we probably stank) – we were in High Eden.

This is breathtaking cattle country, and you could be forgiven for thinking you were somewhere in the Scottish Highlands. Shaggy black smiling cows and fluffy white pregnant sheep dotted the landscape. Grey crags of ancient geology burst forth from seas of green… ah, this was the stuff of poets and journeymen.

This was two and a half thousand acres of heaven otherwise known as Mountadam, and owner David and winemaker Con had been kind enough to invite us up for lunch.

Being BIG Chardonnay fans, JD and I were pretty keen to try a couple of wines first up, and I don’t think our hosts took much convincing, just quietly. We tried an 09 and 08 Mountadam Estate Chardonnay as Con and David shared with us the intriguing history of the site and the brand.

Coonawarra legend and pioneer David Wynn found the property after a two-year long search that took him from Margaret River to Tasmania (not unlike our own humble journey), and he picked the highest spot and planted a variety virtually unheard of in Australia – Chardonnay.

Well, it didn’t take too long before the country went Chardonnay-crazy, and Mountadam was one of those leading the charge.

Bizarre Fact Side Note: Did you know that David Wynn also invented the goon bag? That’s right, the mighty cask. Don’t say you don’t learn anything on RTV!

Something we learned – something fascinating, actually – was that the clones of Chardonnay that David Wynn originally planted included a very rare and since extinct clone that was brought in with the colonists back in the nineteenth century, or thereabouts.

It was planted in Adelaide Hills, on a site called Marble Hill, which burnt down soon after David had taken the cuttings (mysteriously?), and with phylloxera having wiped out the original vines in Burgundy, that left these as the only surviving clone in the world!!

Yours for only $80 a bottle. Seriously though, it’s special stuff.

Also intriguing was the journey the brand has taken over the years – but you’ll have to watch to catch that story and a few more. We were starving, and David’s happy cows had been grilling away on the webber, so we cracked Mountadam’s tribute to its founder, the Patriarch Shiraz, and enjoyed our first taste of High Eden.

And as the sun sank in the sky, we climbed a rocky crag high on the hill with a bottle of Riesling and watched the eagles float on the thermal drafts.

An afternoon to remember, and a fine start indeed to our Eden Valley adventure.

Did I detect a tear in Justin’s eye as we started on down the road for this, our last day in the Barossa? And how would we top the 1 Kg T-bone at Apex Bakery, dinner with the Lehmanns, Charlie’s gypsy, or a 112 year-old port?

With a pig.

We pulled in to Teusner Wines, where Kym and Mick were heating up the coals in the custom-built spit-roaster with air-cooled, fuel-injected rotisserie.

These are the kind of guys you like straight away, but they looked like they might have a little bit of mischief in store, starting with the prettiest pig you’ve ever seen. Well, not alive, anyway…

We helped get her prepped and onto the spit, and yes, it’s graffic, and maybe a bit confronting, but I’ve always been a firm believer that if you’re going to eat something, you should be comfortable with where it’s come from. It’s a respect thing.

The spit through the clacker – perhaps not quite so respectful.

And speaking of, while the pig started cookin’, we cracked a couple of their reds – the Joshua, an unwooded GSM blend, the first wine they ever produced, back in the days of 150 cases, well before their ten million twitter follower, and a very impressive straight Mataro.

This is the 3rd champion of the Barossa, behind Shiraz and Grenache, and if this is what can be produce with Mataro in the Barossa, bring it on. This is seriously good booze – earthy!

When Kym and Mick talk about their wines, they talk about the fruit. That’s everything for them, and it’s all about the growers, including Kym’s uncle-in-law Steve Riebke and his son Nick, who joined us for a drink and a chat.

The Riebke’s have been growing the best grapes in the Barossa for 5 generations now, but they still prefer Scotch, apparently. But we won’t hold that against them.

What was exciting to learn was that 2010 is looking like the finest vintage in memory – both in terms of quality and quantity, so we may see some smiles around the Barossa when this vintage is bottled and sold. They’ve earned it!

Our next couple of guests, like the Teusner crew, and some of the other great young producers we’ve met along the way, are really taking the Barossa into the future – Peter Schell from Spinifex and Dan Standish from The Standish Wine Co.

And kindly they’ve come bearing gifts!

But alas, the rain hit, and we were forced to grab our glasses and flee inside, leaving our roasting pig to brave the weather. We managed to grab Peter for a drink and a chat, and learned a few interesting things:

1. Peter is NOT a fan of the legendary ’98 vintage. In fact, he and his wife started making wine so they WOULDN’T have to drink wines like that; and

2. Despite the market’s fear of blends, Peter believes that’s the way to get the most out of the grapes he turns into wine.

What we learned from Dan Standish is that:

1. He makes seriously good booze, with lovely names and beautiful labels

2. Though 6th Generation Barossa grower, he studied engineering, and tried his darnedest to escape the calling, but (and we’re bloody glad he couldn’t) could not escape, and returned from corporate life to make this stuff.

We were soon overwhelmed with Barossans and amazing wine as more and more guests arrived – some we’d met along the way, others we knew only by reputation, but the party very soon kicked into the next gear.

The pig was done, the boys lowered our fine beast low over the coals, and the sweet wine-basted crackling popped and sizzled in seconds. This, folks, was a fine feast indeed.

Justin and I had the honour of eating the ears, straight off the pig’s head, and we all dove in for the cheeks and belly. It was seriously delicious, but we must have consumed enough pork fat in that sitting to give the Heart Foundation a coronary.

It was wine heaven on the tables – bottles of 98 Rockford Basket Press, Langmeil Orphan Bank, Teusner Avatars, Spinifex, Standish, Cirillo, Tim Smith…  a sea of Barossa’s finest.

You wouldn’t think we’d have needed Kym to siphon his port barrel in the shed, but that he did, and, well… you can imagine how things grew from there.

We learned that night that the kombi can indeed pull a burnout, but not to quite the same impressive magnitude as Kym’s V8 ute.

We learned that a hardened as we Qwoff Boys might think we are, the Barossa boys are harder.

We learned that the Barossa is in good hands for the future, and is indeed one of the most amazing wine regions in the world.

Get there, live it, and don’t forget the panadol!

Ever wondered why there are so many palm trees planted around the Barossa? We did too. The answer is more inspiring than you may have thought.

During the Great Depression (no, the last one), with no work in the wineries or the vineyards to offer their employees, Seppeltsfield (and they had a few other properties around the Barossa too) put their workers, winemakers, and everyone to work – planting palm trees.

And as you drive through Maranaga and along the road to Seppeltsfield, you pass over 2000 palm trees, which was probably riding half of South Australia through the depression!

Such were our thoughts as we pulled in to the incredible piece of Barossa history that is Seppelstfield.

A wrong turn took us to the Cooperage – where old school barrel maker and funny man Andrew gave us a crash course in the art of making and reshaping wine barrels using hand tools, and toasting old barrels for new ports.

Managed to escape without losing any fingers (and thanks Andrew – we could have stayed all day), and found our way down to the main building.

Now this massive stone structure apparently took 21 years to build, hauling stone by horse and cart from the Adelaide Hills – back in 1851.

We were greeted at the door by none other than Warren Randall, the vineyard barren who bought Seppeltsfield back from the Fosters Group recently, with the boys from Killakanoon.

Now Warren is a real character, but his dedication to this unique resource that they’ve inherited in the Centennial Barrel Hall is infectuous.

Great sense of humour, leave your delicate sensibilities at the door – this was a morning will will truly never forget.

Back in 1878, to celebrate finally bloody finishing the building, the folks at Seppeltsfield put aside a few barrels of vintage tawny port, and made a pact not to open it for 100 years.

Now that’s an achievement for those who made the pact to keep, all good and well, but you have to imagine – for this pact to stand, you’ve got 4 or 5 generations who need to keep this promise.

That’s inspiring stuff.

And then they’ve done it again in 1879, 1880, 1881… every vintage is in that hall, right up to 2010.

So in 1978, the first 100 year-old port was bottled and sold, and thus began what is one of Australia’s most incredible wine stories. The only wine aged 100 years in the barrel before bottling in the WORLD.

Quite a few of the vintages have been given 100 points by Halliday – the only wines in Australia to have been awarded perfect scores.

But enough theory – we walked along barrel after barrel, passing years that spoke of such events as World War 1, the Great Depression, Warren’s dad’s birth year.. until we got to 1972, year of my birth.

Now I’m not at all surprised that 1972 was a fine year, intense, full-flavoured, rich and handsome… Okay, so not handsome, but definitely impressive.

Not so the 1977 (Justin’s birth year) – a difficult year, cold, and plagued with an unusual fungus. He, he…

But gags soon passed by the wayside as Warren walked us back to the beginning of the hall, and climbed up on top of a dusty barrel barked with those glorious digits “1898″.

A hush fell over the room. And it takes a lot to shut us up.

From the oversized pippette oozed an unctuous, tar-coloured liquid that resembled more closely motor oil than any fortified I’d ever tasted.

It coated the glass like an oil-spill.

It smelled of toffee and tar, or cigars and cumquats, or burnt caramel and other amazing things.

And it tasted… well, words don’t do it justice.

It tasted of angels and devils.

Amen.

And the music in this episode came from an amazing movement called Creative Commons – check it out.

We woke up parked next to a reservoir, with wallabies hanging outside the kombi, checking out that these two vagabonds were doing in their backyard.

Then it all came back to us – the tip-off from Peter and Margaret Lehmann “visit the whispering wall”… the previous night’s frivolities involving said whispering wall…

Though not quite as hilarious the next morning, it was nonetheless astonishing. Loses a bit in the translation, but let’s just say that the natural acoustics of the MASSIVE dam wall are such that you can stand over a hundred meters away from each other at either end of the dam, and hear everything you say at a whisper.

Anyway, so we gave that a crack, and at a hundred yards, Justin informed me that today we were headed out in search of another great Barossa wine style – the GSM.

And there is perhaps none better to share it with us than Charlie Melton from Charles Melton Wines, producers of the famous Nine Popes GSM.

Charlie put on a traditional lamb pie lunch for us, together with a lovely bloke by the name of David, a 5th generation grower who supplies Charlie with his best fruit from vines over a hundred years old.

Charlie had us in stitches. He tells a good yarn, I swear.

We learned how the name Nine Popes came about (a classic balls-up, in Charlie’s words), we learned his real name, and we learned about the Gypsy woman who inspired Charlie’s love affair with Grenache and the perfect blend that is GSM…

As our afternoon in the Barossa Boardroom with the Lehmanns turned into evening, the conversation took a turn, and we finally got to hear first hand the story of how the Barossa was saved from multi-national destruction.

Now you can imagine how this kind of story strikes a chord with us, not that we’re anti-corporate, we’re just pro-soul.

And what a story it is, and how inspiring to hear how hard someone has fought to preserve what we now could simply take for granted. I dare say there’s not a grower in the Barossa who would have forgotten the foundation of Masterton – named after the gambler from Guys and Dolls.

We won’t give it all away here, you’ll have to watch it, but we shall take from this evening courage in our own endeavours.

And we’ll never ask an Italian if we can photocopy his cheque!!!

We’ve had the honour, along this awesome journey, of meeting some of the greatest legends of Australian wine. But few have done as much as this great man (and woman!) to save a region, and shape the way wine would move forwards in the world.

And so it was with humbling excitement that Justin and I rolled up the drive to the stately manor of Peter and Margaret Lehmann, where we had been invited for a drink and a chat.

In the very kitchen, known as The Barossa Boardroom, no less, where tears and sweat and blood had been spilled, where life-long bonds had been forged, contracts sealed, where decisions had been made that would shape the very future of the Barossa we know today…

Like well behaved school-boys we tip-toed in, to be welcomed warmly by Margaret, and in seconds were disarmed by Peter’s charm and humour. When the Lehmanns this slip a joke about preferring the kitchen table into introductions, you know you’ve come to the right place, and you’re in for a good evening.

Waiting for us were two bottles – a self-titled 2004 Margaret Semillon and an 04 Stonewell Shiraz. His and hers matching wines. Margaret reckons that “when she carks and they open up her veins, not a drop of blood will spill out, only Margaret Semillon”.

We love this couple more with each passing minute.

The Semillon flows, and I for one am astonished at how good it is – on a par with the great whites of the Hunter, without a doubt, and just starting to get some beautiful toasty honeyed aged characters. Having lived off their $8 Semillon in our youths, this is really something else.

“The way a good mother should be,” Margaret tells us, “always there for you after school, ages beautifully… and perfect with home-made fresh tomato soup in summer.”

“She seems to find reason enough to drink it in winter,” Peter adds with a rumbling chuckle. “I’m a red man, myself, and seeing that I’m only allowed 2 glasses a day (doctor’s orders), I don’t mess around with that sissy stuff.”

We nibbled on home-grown, dried and salted pistachios, mettwurst, presswurst, schinken, and you name it, while Lehmann and Lehmann regailed us with stories and laughter.

They shared with us their recipe for cucumber salad, or “cu-ee salad”, which had been passed down through generations of Lehmann matriarchs, and indeed was something of a right of passage to any would-be female suitor to the Lehmann boys.

But there was one story we were dying to hear first-hand, the story of how the Barossa was saved…

(to be continued…)

Day 2 in the Barossa, and this day is all about one thing – old vines. And Justin has sprung a nice surprise on us – an invite to the famous Orphan Bank Day at Langmeil.

The Barossa, and Langmeil specifically, lays claim to having the oldest Shiraz vines in the world. Now they say “arguably”, but we’re going all the way. These things are ancient.

And they call us the New World…

So into the kombi we climbed and off to Langmeil we drove, to partake in a morning of drinking, eating and picking.

The Orphan Bank is named such because a few years ago, the boys from Langmeil heroically saved a vineyard of 140-odd year old vines that were destined for destruction. They actually dug up these ancient, precious vines, and transplanted them onto their own property, and over 95% of the vines survived.

And so gave birth the legend of the Orphan Bank Shiraz, hand-picked by 300 “foster-parents” – dedicated winelovers who for $500 get their own vine for 10 years, and the wine made from it – a bottle of Orphan Bank per year.

And I tell you – these folks were proud Parents of Orphans (POO for short), and took to the task with the kind of gusto that is only achieved after 3 glasses of sparkling Shiraz.

But first up was the breakfast of champions. Justin and I scored a sneak-peak of the might Langmeil 1843 Freedom Shiraz – the wine made from the oldest Shiraz vines in the WORLD, the Freedom vineyard, planted in – yes, you guessed it – 1843.

Our food match for this legendary wine was bacon and eggs with tomato and mushroom (that’s Linke’s bacon, by the way, for the record), and I tell you, it was a match made in heaven. The kind of start to the day one could grow all too quickly accustomed to, I dare say

Paul Lindner, the winemaker at Langmeil, took us out to the Freedom vineyard to introduce us to the gnarly old characters responsible for our fine breakfast.

I tell you, to sit next to a vine that is 167 years old, having tasted the wine that comes from that fat, twisted, noble and alarmingly delicate plant was something quite special. They’d picked the plot a week before, but there were still a few shriveled bunches to taste, teasing us with what was to come for the 2010 vintage. Special stuff indeed.

Off to work we went, donning our blue slip-on booties, and armed with bucket and a wicked pair of secateurs, we made short work of our allotted orphan.

Proud POOs we were, and we’ll be checking back in when she’s ready to drink, believe you me.

We’d had a taste of what Old Vine Shiraz is all about, from the oldest of them all, but there was another wine that we couldn’t go past, and that was The Old Bastard by Kaesler. Need more be said?

At $175 a bottle, thank god our charm (or was it our desperation) appealed to the lovely Sarah, whom we met at cellar door, and she grabbed a bottle and took us out the back where winemaker Reid Bosward, the man behind Kaesler today, was tasting the ferments.

Reid is the kind of guy you want to have a drink with in the pub. The quintessential, rough around the edges, no bullshit genius who doesn’t mind letting the wine do its own talking. He took us up the top of the tanks for a look across the valley, and gave us a taste of the old bastard himself.

Wow. Made from vines planted in 1893, when Reid explained how the roots go down 30 or 40 feet on vines like that, dining on minerals and nutrients that younger vines can only dream about, you could taste it in the glass – funky, delicious, fascinating, complex flavours and textures, all inside a wine that at 16% alcohol was undeniably harmonious.

Reid, if you can get past your prejudice against Pinot, we might have the beginnings of a beautiful friendship, and you’re welcome in the kombi anytime.

Miles is driving