Chateau Dorrien
Our first stop was at Chateau Dorrien, the first winery we encountered on the road to the Seppeltsfield winery. This road is packed with vineyards (well duh, it's the Barossa) and wineries. It was recommended by a lady my mate knew who said they did some nice sweet wines.
The grounds of the winery were rather quaint with big concrete vats shaped like castle turrets. I wasn't too sure about the palm trees dotted around the place. They seemed out of place, then again who knows how good they'd look on a dry and sunny day in the Barossa. Inside was cosy with lots of wooden planks and even a little shop with hippy paraphenalia.
This place is apparently reknowned for its mead but we tried the wines first. Their Verdelho was quite a pleasant drink with plenty of tropical fruit flavours but perhaps lacking that extra level of fruitiness that the best Verdelhos have. Their other table wines weren't too bad but did nothing for me.
I had to try the blackcurrant liqueur as I just can't get enough of blackcurrant flavours. This is actually a port style liqueur with blackcurrants added during fermentation. I was hoping for lots of blackcurrant flavour but when combined with the alcohol and grape flavours of the port just made for something resembling cough syrup unfortunately.
It seems that Chateau Dorrien is the only place in the Barossa to produce mead, the alcoholic beverage produced from fermented honey. The sweet honey mead was quite refreshing with that pleasant sweetness you can only get from honey. The alcohol was well balanced avoiding the bitter after taste of most beverages with fairly high levels of alcohol. I could understand why it was called the nectar of the gods and can't wait to try it chilled in the warmer months.
This sweet honey mead forms the basis for the other mead we tried, the spicy mead. This was quickly but gently warmed before serving to coax all the flavours out. It smelt and tasted like a hot cross bun. Again it was a well balanced drink with the spices adding a subtle complexity to the richness of the mead. I later tried it with some apple pie but it didn't seem as balanced then, perhaps of the sugar and spice in the pie. However this still makes a great winter warmer, good for sore throats and congested chests.
The impression I got from Chateau Dorrien was that it was one of the lesser known establishments that make technically sound wines from good quality grapes. Whilst the majority of the wines didn't take my breath away they were definitely a cut above the majority of generic wines from the wine factories along the Murray river. The meads add another dimension to this winery and have set the benchmark for which other meads measure for me.
The grounds of the winery were rather quaint with big concrete vats shaped like castle turrets. I wasn't too sure about the palm trees dotted around the place. They seemed out of place, then again who knows how good they'd look on a dry and sunny day in the Barossa. Inside was cosy with lots of wooden planks and even a little shop with hippy paraphenalia.
This place is apparently reknowned for its mead but we tried the wines first. Their Verdelho was quite a pleasant drink with plenty of tropical fruit flavours but perhaps lacking that extra level of fruitiness that the best Verdelhos have. Their other table wines weren't too bad but did nothing for me.
I had to try the blackcurrant liqueur as I just can't get enough of blackcurrant flavours. This is actually a port style liqueur with blackcurrants added during fermentation. I was hoping for lots of blackcurrant flavour but when combined with the alcohol and grape flavours of the port just made for something resembling cough syrup unfortunately.
It seems that Chateau Dorrien is the only place in the Barossa to produce mead, the alcoholic beverage produced from fermented honey. The sweet honey mead was quite refreshing with that pleasant sweetness you can only get from honey. The alcohol was well balanced avoiding the bitter after taste of most beverages with fairly high levels of alcohol. I could understand why it was called the nectar of the gods and can't wait to try it chilled in the warmer months.
This sweet honey mead forms the basis for the other mead we tried, the spicy mead. This was quickly but gently warmed before serving to coax all the flavours out. It smelt and tasted like a hot cross bun. Again it was a well balanced drink with the spices adding a subtle complexity to the richness of the mead. I later tried it with some apple pie but it didn't seem as balanced then, perhaps of the sugar and spice in the pie. However this still makes a great winter warmer, good for sore throats and congested chests.
The impression I got from Chateau Dorrien was that it was one of the lesser known establishments that make technically sound wines from good quality grapes. Whilst the majority of the wines didn't take my breath away they were definitely a cut above the majority of generic wines from the wine factories along the Murray river. The meads add another dimension to this winery and have set the benchmark for which other meads measure for me.
Labels: wineries
posted by Forrest Rivers at 12:46
1 Comments:
Mead is not at all what I thought it would be, myself. I had in mind legions of drunken viking norsemen, throwing back this intense beverage. Instead, its a bit like Port...sweet and syrupy. Of course, what I had was from the Moniak Winery in Inverneshire. Maybe the Dorrien stuff is different. Frankly, I'd go for a Single Malt or a lager anyday.
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