Explaining Global Wine Regions And The Barossa Valley

By David Farmer

Why did we decide to set up the Glug shop in the Barossa Valley? It’s a long answer including the taste of wines and the best place to site a new business. To produce wines as sumptuous and flavoured as the Crayford Barossa Valley Shiraz 2016 or as packed with such complex, detail as the Karrawirra Barossa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2015 confirms we are on the right track.

The Adelaidean Mount Lofty Range is number 4 of my top five Global wine zones. That tiny region, the Barossa Valley, would be in the top five of the worlds local region.

The flavours of wines are created in two steps; the grapes develop flavour from the weather and this is manipulated by vignerons during cultivation and by winemakers during wine making. I may add a mysterious third force, the world of microbes, has a say during the fermentation process.

Then it is your turn as you are involved with the shopping, being confronted with thousands of choices all asking for attention. For today can I make your Monday choice as I wish to see in your home the very agreeable Oakley Adams Langhorne Creek Shiraz 2016.

All vineyard landscapes are endlessly variable and interact, minute by minute with the weather; as well further diversity comes from humans tending the crop and making the wine; and this combination is so complex that all wines are different to a degree.

Many experiments have been done along these lines; take a pile of grapes, divide these into six parts, use six teams and guess what; you end up with six different wines showing as many differences as similarities.

So welcome to the world of wine which is guaranteed to keep you interested till you die.

And now back to why we live in the Barossa Valley and this is helped with a summary of my top five wine regions of the world, the detail of which will be in a future article.

1. New Zealand. A unique small island straddling the ‘hot vine latitude’ and isolated from all other land influences by its amazing location, way down in the deep Southern Pacific.

2.The Soane-Rhone River Valley, France. From Dijon, Burgundy to Marseille, 500 kilometres of vineyards, providing a fabulous, feast of varietal difference while moving from coolness to warmth.

3. The Western maritime edge of France, Spain and Portugal. From the mouth of the Loire, to the Gironde-Bordeaux, stepping west to Oporto and all the valleys that stream into the Atlantic, finishing at the Golfo de Cadiz and Jerez de la Frontera.

4. The Adelaidean-Mount Lofty Range of South Australia. A range extending from the Southern Flinders for 350 kilometres to Kangaroo Island which is positioned at right angles to the prevailing cooling weather while being burnt by the inland heat. This ‘warm-cooler’ creates wine flavours like no other global zone. Vineyards range from near sea level to 600 metres and includes inland oddities like the amazing Barossa Valley.

5. The western maritime coastline of the US from Vancouver to Santa Barbara a distance of 1200 kilometres which shows how important maritime coastal locations are in developing the flavours we enjoy.

Why not experience the flavours of the far-western, maritime region of Margaret River as they have been trapped in the Cape Geographe Margaret River Sauvignon Blanc Semillon 2017.