The birthday wine tour to the McLaren Vale kicked off with a stop at Angoves boutique cellar door, where the friends enjoyed tasting a wide selection of wines and the “World’s Best” brandy.   Steve the wine tour operator also whipped up a few Balloon Animals as a treat for the Birthday Girl!

After a short drive through the picturesque McLaren Vale wine region, we arrived at Kay Brothers vineyard.  Bob our cellar door guide expertly explained each of the sampled wines on offer, including the Block 6 Shiraz and Very Rare Muscat from under the counter.

We then visited Graham and Carolyn Stevens (Graham Stevens Wines) where further tastings were enjoyed, along with many laughs, and the winemakers detailed explanation of their winemaking process and philosophy.

In the middle of our full day wine tour, we took a long, relaxed lunch at Vasarelli’s, which of course included sharing a few more of bottles of McLaren Vale wine.

After lunch we continue our wine tour over to Steve and Sue Daniels of DANSHI Wines for a private tasting with the winemaker and grower.  Current vintage tastings were sampled direct from the wine barrel and compared to the previous bottled vintages, whilst enjoying cheese, crackers, home grown olives and olive oil.

With the sun setting into the gulf we left the McLaren Vale wineries and headed back to Adelaide.

A most enjoyable and informative day was had by all (including Steve the wine tour operator) andsurprisingly the Balloon Animals made it back safely too!

Check out this top review on TripAdvisor