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Our mission today was to visit McLaren Vale and follow the wine and food trail. We called in to Harvest the Fleurieu on the way to McLaren Vale, we had passed this outlet off and on when travelling the Fleurieu Peninsula and we had heard it had a good variety of local produce so we thought we would call in to have a look. There was lots of choice of fresh, vacuum packed and bottled produce. We picked a fresh loaf of bread that had just come out of the oven and had the pleasure of smelling it every time we climbed back into the car.
Our first stop on entering McLaren Vale was the Hardy's Tintara winery, we chose this winery because we knew the name and thought it would be a good first stop. It certainly was and we loved visiting the older building and reading the history of Hardy wines in this area. We were also intrigued with the family history of this winery which went back to the 1800's. We didn't really need to but decided while we were here to do a tasting so I tried a Fiano which I believe is an Italian blend and thought it was a good white wine.
I am not a great fan of almonds but we were doing the whole wine/food region trail and decided to have a bit of variety in our visits. We had just been to Hardy's Tintara and The Almond Train is just next door so it was appealing to visit. You are able to try the products which is always good and I really liked a few of the dressings and almonds. I came away with the Herb Garlic Chili and Lime Almonds which were really good. I also enjoyed the Wasabi Almonds and the Beetle Juice sauce. I thought the prices were ok and what you would expect and the gentleman who served us was very friendly and happy to have a chat, a good stop.
We were trying to vary our visits while in the McLaren Vale so thought a brewery might be a good inclusion. This is a very new brewery and the building is very impressive. You have lots of options to try their beers but we chose to have a lager and pale ale and shared between us. We sat outside where there were heaters on because it was quite a cool day. There were lots of people there either eating or meeting up with friends, we noticed that most of the tables inside were reserved and outside there were tables taken up with families with young children. Definitely worth a visit.
Our next stop was the D'Arenberg Cube, we couldn't visit this iconic site and not go through the building so we paid our $10 PP entry and went through to inspect this amazing structure. There was a gallery of Salvadore Dali artwork on display on the second floor but this didn't really interest us so we chose just to visit the 1st and fourth floors that our $10 entry allowed us. The rooms and artwork were quite interesting but the best part for us was the fourth or top floor where we could step out to one of the balcony's and get a fantastic view over McLaren Vale. We then went inside a took advantage of the complimentary wine tasting that came along with our entry fee. I prefer white wines so tried a few on offer which I enjoyed but not enough to purchase. We had a lovely young guy serving us who had lots of knowledge about the wines we were trying which only added to our enjoyment of this experience.