South Australia: for connoisseurs

I spent most of my life growing up in South Australia, and so the fantastic wines, wonderful produce and beautiful countryside that are found all around my fair state are not things that easily surprise me anymore.
But the mistake so many make, and one that I am certainly guilty of at times, is to think that the easy and unhurried pace of life in South Australia means that its daily wonders rarely, if ever, change.
I grew up in the Adelaide Hills, a place where fresh artisan breads bought daily from the baker’s back door, handmade and smoked small goods from someone you were on a first-name basis with, not to mention word-class wines from just down the road, were just a part of everyday life for me.

In my twenties we often toured the state’s famous wine regions – the Barossa, McLaren Vale, the Clare Valley, the Coonawarra and, of course, my own Adelaide Hills – whether for a family road trip, a romantic weekend getaway, or a bigger, more boisterous group of wine loving friends (and the requisite designated drivers).

These are fantastic and indelible memories for me – lunches under the Barossa sun, mottled and filtered through vines, my first glass of Grant Burge Shadrach, spirited discussions about the finer points of winemaking between my father and my uncles, or just laughing and carrying on with friends. But my biggest failing was thinking that they were just that – memories.

Time marches forever onward and the friends I toured the wineries with as young and enthusiastic connoisseurs-in-training so many years ago are now working the fields and making the wines I now buy. For my own part I find myself searching the local markets and providores for new ingredients and inspiration for my next dish or cookbook.

The wines, restaurants and personalities of the South Australian food scene are forever changing, growing and stamping their mark on the global food scene.

When I first came to South Australia, Maggie Beer had just established the Barossa Pheasant Farm Restaurant – a beginning of a glorious career of service to South Australian food.

South Australian wines are now acclaimed the world over, not just for some kind of antipodean quaintness, but as examples of bold and exciting developments in the world of wine. Impressive restaurants like Ferment-asian and Appellation are quietly and carefully adding depth and dimension to an established wine region with exciting and delicious food.

Outside the Barossa there’s a nearly never-ending list of food discoveries. Award-winning natural wines and cheeses from the Adelaide Hills, world-class wagyu beef from the Limestone Coast, Rieslings from the Clare Valley – a region devoted solely to perfection in that craft, and honey from ancient Ligurian bees on Kangaroo Island, the only place you’ll find it in the world.

There’s more to discover in South Australia than you could ever imagine. But don’t make the mistake so many do in thinking that the slow and deliberate pace of our state means that things are standing still. It just means that we’re broadening, deepening and mellowing – like any fine wine should.