ADELAIDE — THE
NAdelaide’s Majestic Rooftop Garden Hotel is near popular Rundle St shops, with fresh local produce in the hotel restaurant and a rooftop garden.
In McLaren Vale, stay in a winery at Serafino McLaren Vale set in lush gardens with a lake, vines and 200-year-old gum trees. othing is quite as it seems in the small South Australian town of McLaren Vale. Take d’Arenberg Cube, a cellar door with a difference, where you can enter an alternate reality before you’ve even had a sip to drink.
The idea for the Cube came to Chester Osborn, fourth generation of the Osborn winemaking family, when he drew parallels between the Rubik’s Cube and the complexities and puzzles of winemaking. It’s hard to know just how to describe the result, other than to say it’s a mix between and with a healthy dose of psychedelia thrown in. On the ground level is the alternate realities museum; rooms overflowing with an onslaught of interactive elements. Higher up, there’s a restaurant and then a wine bar, where I take a seat in a brightly coloured patchwork chair to enjoy a Premium Wine Flight, overlooking the juxtaposing calm of rolling vine-filled hills.
The distinctive style of the Cube has had a polarising effect on the town — people love it or loathe it. But, like the cheerily-named Pollyanna Polly Chardonnay Pinot Noir Pinot Meunier NV I’m sipping, the overall effect is a not-sosubtle reminder to lighten up and always look on the bright side of life.
Even at the more conservatively-decorated Wirra Wirra, things aren’t what they first appear. This winery, down picturesque country lanes, has a history as flavoursome as the wine.
It was founded in 1894 by eccentric cricketer Robert Strangways Wigley, who was banished to the countryside by his uncle — then Lord Mayor of Adelaide — for unruly behaviour in the city. Following Wigley’s death in 1926, the vineyard fell into disrepair until the late Greg Trott and his cousin Roger rebuilt it from the remnants of two walls and some slate fermenting tanks.
Now, there are surprising features like the Scrubby Rise vineyard, a flat landscape with a viewing platform christened “The Jetty”, which looks over vines, rather than a body of water. There’s even a surrealist sculpture of a man in a suit and bowler hat rowing a boat across the vineyards. “It’s all about serious fun in McLaren Vale,” explains Simon Burley, founder of Coast & Co, who is hosting me on an e-bike cycle tour of the area. We hop back on the bikes and head to a local gallery called Red Poles, run by Ros Miller. The gallery focuses on indigenous art, with an exhibition rotating every eight weeks.
Alongside the paintings, bought direct from the artists so the money goes back to