30 Jan: Tanunda - aka Barossa Valley (SA) --> Adelaide (SA).

Marc and Jill looking "SUPER official" as we get ready for our private blending session at Penny's

Given the amount of wine consumption this week, +Marc and I have been trying to be really diligent about getting some exercise in. This morning, we went out for a 5K run in the town we were staying in. After yesterday's run, it felt good to take it a little bit easier. 

Today was pretty much about Penny's (aka Penfolds). Our friend, +Erik, arranged for us to have 3 sessions (one of which is on Saturday at the original estate in Adelaide) with Penny's, including a tasting of the legendary Grange. In the morning, we had a blending session in the lab. We ended blending and experimenting in the lab where the Penfolds winemakers do their testing, so it was pretty kitted out with equipment, lots of white to identify color of wine and other characteristics of newer and older vintages and plenty of sinks to spit wine out. 

Marc and I were given 3 bottles to work with from the 2011 vintage and tasted the 2010 BIN 138. While 2010 and 2011 were very different vintages, it just allowed us to get a sense of a current blend before we started our experiments. We each had 3 trials, so really that meant that Marc and I had 6 since we would share anyway. The 3 varietals were very standard Rhone varietals and part of a very common blend in Australia called "GSM" (aka Grenache Shiraz and Mataro (Mouvedre)). But the "GSM" sometimes becomes "SMG" or "SGM". It all depends on what is coming out of the massive amount of vineyards that Penfolds sources its grapes from. The percentages of the grapes also differ from year to year. Again, it is vintage dependent.

Marc's results from his blending lab session: so much fun!!

My final blend that I got to bottle as the equivalent of a 1/2 bottle was 54% Mataro, 36% Shiraz and 10% Grenache. Marc's was 55% Shiraz, 33% Mataro and 12% Grenache. Since we will be cooking dinner in Adelaide tomorrow, it will be fun to drink these and try them out.

Based on our conversation with our host for the day during the lab session, Suzanne recommended a couple of wines for us to try at the tasting bar before lunch, which we did. Penfolds has such a large array of wines that it is hard for us in the States to figure out what we really enjoy and don't enjoy from them (outside of Grange). So the tasting helped us out on that front since Grange isn't exactly an everyday drinking wine. :-)

We had a lunch break at a winery up the road called Saltram. The weather was perfect to sit outside and we had a couple of their Shirazes with our meal. Really nice and relaxing before our afternoon tasting session.

The Grange tasting session was with another couple and they were really nice. Suzanne walked us through the history of how Grange came to be as well as some of the other wines. The most interesting tidbit (for me anyway) came from how the BIN 707 came to be. A gentleman who used to work for Qantas in marketing came to work for Penfolds and was enamored with the Boeing 707, and hence you got the BIN 707. It also happened to taste really nice. Of the non-Grange stuff, Marc really enjoyed the Magill Estate Shiraz and I stuck with saying that the RWT was my fave after the tasting. We tasted a 2007 Grange, which is very young for that wine. It had been double decanted before our tasting, but it was nice for sure.

Jill looking "SUPER OFFICIAL" again at Orlando Wines Pernod Ricard

After Penfolds, we had one more stop to make before heading to Adelaide. Our friend and former consulting winemaker for Purple Teeth Cellars, +Michael Z. (aka "Z"), connected us with a bunch of people in the wine business here. We met one of his "uni" buddies, Steve Clarkson, who is a general manager of Orlando Wines. Orlando is part of a much larger conglomerate that includes Jacob's Creek, Brancott Estate, etc. It was really interesting to get his perspective since they produce so many wines and yes, they produce higher quality wines than we generally receive in the US. Because of import laws, we just don't see them. Anyway it was a very informative chat.

It took just over an hour to get to Adelaide and we got to see more kangaroos on the road on the way in. We found our AirBnB pretty easily and walked to a Japanese restaurant for dinner. Really great flavors and nice local seafood. Marc even got to have "sushi" - ok, it was a wagyu beef roll but hey...

All in all, a fun day, especially thanks to "Z" and Erik for hooking us up with really smart and generous folks. It's supposed to rain the next few days in Adelaide so we will see what that does for our plans.

Thanks for reading and please feel free to ask questions!