Other results that day were mixed. While we did get to Taylors (and very nice the wines were, too) their wines are fairly readily available in retail outlets so I didn’t see any pressing need to add myself to the mailing list, and if I need up-to-date information there’s always their website.
The game plan over the next two days involved starting from Clare (the northern end of the valley) and working down the western side of the highway one day, and down the eastern side with an excursion to Mintaro via the Polish Hill River region on the other.
As things worked out we ended up doing the eastern side first, registering for the mailing list everywhere that was of interest, including Kirrihill, Paulett and Pikes.
The western side was the big one, with five star wineries at Jim Barry, Neagles Rock, Mitchell, Kilikanoon and Olssens. Time permitting I thought we might manage to make it into Crabtree as well, and I’m glad we did since it was a very impressive little operation that returned to Mr Halliday’s Five Star list in the 2010 Australian Wine Companion.
So if you count back over those places listed in the last two paragraphs, that’s nine wineries and while you want to order something from each it takes a while to get to all of them.
Special offers that arrived via email from Jim Barry and Kirrihill had some impact on the pecking order, of course, but as of mid-September, once I’d got an order in at Grosset (important since they invariably sell out within six weeks or so) it was time to resume the catching up.
A revamp of the website at Mitchell gave me the excuse I needed to cross them off the To Do list, and fortunately their range is small enough to cover most of the wines in a single dozen. Further details about our visit to the winery here and here; comments on the wines in the dozen here.
And while I was waiting for the yellow parcel delivery van to come around the corner an opportunity to start on the Paulett wines presented itself. For further details...
We’re not out of the woods yet, of course. I’m expecting something in the mail from Rockford and Olssens and I’ve got an order from Pikes worked out.
But when those things actually take place I think they’ll deserve a page of their own.
