Day 28: Clare Valley

This morning, we drove into town to see whether someone could have a look at Sherwood’s battery charging (as this was really weighing on Adam’s mind). Though the auto electrician couldn’t help us, he let us try plugging in Sherwood (with fingers crossed), Adam went for a walk (and a hot chocolate), and I went for a wine tasting at Knappstein, a winery conveniently right in town.

I was the only one in the cellar door. I had a lovely chat with the woman behind the bar (her family is involved in wine transport throughout the region, and she really knew her stuff). I did the Riesling flight, doing a side-by-side comparison of the winery’s 2022 releases: the Clare Valley Riesling; the Insider Riesling (with more intervention from the winemaker); and the Enterprise Vineyard Spring Farm Riesling, a single-vineyard offering.

Adam picked up Sherwood – temporarily charged up – picked me up, and drove us back to the campground. Next up, we had another walking adventure, this time along the Riesling Trail (my kind of trail). Our destination? Pauletts, a reputed winery and home to the award-winning Bush DeVine Winery Restaurant. We’d wanted to do a splurge meal in wine country, and were too late in booking The Lane in the Adelaide Hills, but many people recommended Pauletts. So we booked in for its degustation lunch with matching wines.

The Riesling Trail was lovely.

But unfortunately, it didn’t take us all the way to Pauletts. We had to turn off and walk about two kilometres down a very curvy, dodgy road with no sidewalks. This was a bit stressful, and I stressed to Adam that we should not make the return walk, full of food and wine.

Thankfully, we arrived intact, and the meal, wine, and service were all unbelievably good. And we got unbelievably stuffed. (There would be no need for dinner in Sherwood tonight.)

Here’s what we had:

• housemade sourdough bread
• emu bush mushroom, green onion pancake, eucalypt chilli chau, native myrtle hoisin with NV Trillians Sparkling Red
• kangaroo bresaola, fermented beetroot, caramelised yoghurt, hazelnuts, muntries with the 2022 Polish Hill River Riesling
• roasted barramundi, paperbark smoked ham hock, white bean, sprouts with the 2020 ‘109’ Reserve Riesling
• tea-smoked duck, charred greens, peanut dressing, Red Centre limes, black fungus with the 2019 Clare Valley Shiraz
• Whipped Geraldton wax, white chocolate, pumpkin, black berries with the NV ‘Out of the Shed’ Muscat
• Affogato: housemade vanilla ice cream, cinnamon myrtle damper donut

Indeed, rather than taking our lives in our hands again, we called an Uber. We had to wait a half-hour, but Adam made a phone call to his Mum, and I wandered around the pretty property and through the on-site Indigenous Australian Bush Food Garden.

It was interesting but largely dormant this time of year. I would’ve liked to walk through while it was in full bloom. Next time!