The only McLaren Vale wineries guide you need to read

Originally written by Alexis Buxton-Collins with updates by Megan Arkinstall

Plan the perfect wine weekend at these standout cellar doors where you can level up your tasting with lavish lunch spreads, expert-led tours and luxe hideaways.

Less than an hour south of Adelaide lies Australia’s most beautiful wine region, where dozens of inviting cellar doors are surrounded by lovingly tended rows of vines caressed by gentle sea breezes. From iconic shiraz to easy-drinking Italian, Greek, Spanish and Portuguese varietals, you’ll find an astonishing range of flavour profiles on offer, and that diversity is reflected in the cellar door offerings at the best McLaren Vale wineries.

In a single magical day you can enjoy a tasting with a sixth-generation owner and chase the kids around an enchanting natural maze before sitting down to an immaculately presented lunch at one of the Vale’s best restaurants and lying back in the lap of luxury at the cosy winery accommodation nearby – here’s everything you need to know.

Wineries | Winery restaurants | Wine tours | Winery accommodation

The Best McLaren Vale wineries

The 45-minute drive from Adelaide makes it simple to visit McLaren Vale on a day trip, but you could just as easily spend several weeks visiting more than 80 cellar doors dotted around the region. And because they encompass everything from rustic, family-run operations to internationally renowned names, oenophiles of every stripe will find their tastes catered to at these McLaren Vale wineries.

Coriole

Rolling hills lined with perfectly manicured rows of Sangiovese vines usually conjure up visions of Tuscany, but the glittering ocean in the distance makes this a McLaren Vale special.

It’s no surprise that this is one of the most sought-after wedding destinations in the entire region, and the views are even better with a glass in hand at the open-air arbour bar that pours the perfect mix of regional classics like shiraz alongside emerging Mediterranean varietals.

Kangarilla Road

Old and new school winemaking techniques are on display at this shared cellar door, which is also home to Silent Noise wines. Eye-catching modern artworks set the scene for an innovative father and son winemaking team making everything from funky pet nats to single block Shiraz releases that tell a story of place and let you do a deep dive into terroir. Just be sure to allow plenty of time for a visit, as you’ll want to taste most of the 30 wines on offer.

Big Easy Radio

It’s strictly adults-only at this giant teal shed surrounded by palms, which feels more like a mate’s backyard than an award-winning winery. Don’t expect things to be quiet, though; regular gigs featuring many of the state’s best musicians make it the place to be Friday nights and Sunday afternoons. The service is as casual as the dress code (boardies and thongs are welcome) but the easy-drinking wines are the result of serious attention to detail, with left-field blends of Mediterranean varietals at the fore.

Woodstock

Little ones will absolutely love the wildlife sanctuary at this sprawling property, which is one of the most kid-friendly wineries in McLaren Vale. Arrive in the morning to spot some of the fluffy rescue koalas napping in centuries-old gums beside the cellar door before getting up close with the friendly resident kangaroos and an emu named Maverick at the daily 11:30 feeding.

Then it’s time to treat yourself in the tasting room that heroes crisp whites and powerful old vine shiraz alongside a fortified tasting matched with chocolates.

McLaren Vale wineries with lunch

Waves of Italian migration and a dry coastal climate have had a profound influence on the McLaren Vale wine and food scenes, so it’s no surprise that you’ll find a range of classic Mediterranean options filling both your plate and glass.

But there’s also a strong modern Australian streak running through the culinary scene, which combines local produce and techniques from around the world with stunning views. Whether you’re after a grazing platter or a sophisticated degustation, you’ll find what you’re after at these McLaren vale winery restaurants.

Need tips, more detail or itinerary ideas tailored to you? Ask AT.

Maxwell

This family-friendly winery is best known for mazes and mead, but the real star of the show is usually hard at work in the kitchen. Chef Fabian Lehmann devises the kind of audaciously plated creations that are made for Instagram, and fortunately, they taste every bit as good as they look.

The $165 price tag means this is strictly for special occasions, and the 10-course tasting menu features intentionally vague listings like “nori, ricotta, pea" to ensure that every dish is a surprise when it arrives.

d’Arenberg

This giant five-storey Rubik’s Cube rising above the vines is visible long before you reach it, which is a good thing: you might need a little time to decide which option to visit for lunch.

The playful fourth-storey restaurant Singapore Circus combines influences from across Southeast Asia in a range of small plates and signature dishes like the showstopping chilli crab.

While d’Arry’s Verandah in the neighbouring 19th-century homestead is the place to head to for leisurely long lunches that highlight seasonal local produce.

Wirra Wirra

If you’re after something a little more casual, the staff at Harry’s Deli begin pulling shots of Dawn Patrol coffee and serving a simple brunch menu at 10 am before switching to more substantial fare at lunchtime.

You can get on a first-name basis with some of the region’s best producers as you tuck into cheeseboards and platters featuring Brian’s olives and Andy Clappis’ bread, or go a little deeper into the menu to find a range of sandwiches and a hearty steak and shiraz pie that’s a local favourite.

Shottesbrooke

You won’t be able to taste your way through the entire range at this winery, which has six different skews covering everything from affordable porch pounders to a reserve series made for sipping.

But sample even a few and you’ll likely enjoy the excuse to stretch your legs on a short walk through the vines to The Currant Shed, where you’ll find yet more Shottesbrooke wines on pour alongside a thoughtful menu that offers elegant fine dining without any pretensions (there’s even a three-course set menu for kids that’s paired with housemade lime cordial).

The top wine tours in McLaren Vale

With so many cellar doors to choose from it makes sense to let an expert help you plan the ideal day out, and having someone else behind the wheel means you can sit back and fully enjoy the day on these McLaren Vale wine tours.

My McLaren Vale

When he’s not manning the cellar door at Samuel’s Gorge, North Carolina native Jon Overcash leads small group tours that give you exclusive access to some of the best wineries in McLaren Vale (with a few breweries and distilleries thrown in for good measure). His extensive network of local connections means you can expect exclusive access to winemakers and a few barrel samples along the way, and he can customise the itinerary to focus on particular wineries, styles or family-friendly venues.

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New World Wine Tour Co

Even the most experienced oenophile will learn a thing or two on Ian Hooper’s tours, which explore the cutting edge of McLaren Vale wines. Boutique, hard-to-find producers and unusual varietals and styles are the order of the day on these fascinating excursions, which include vegan and natural wine tours as well as a day-long sensory experience that aims to demystify this sometimes intimidating world by introducing guests to the vocabulary and flavours of new generation wines.

Helivista

If you want to fully appreciate McLaren Vale’s stunning natural beauty, this unique tour gives you a bird’s eye view over the entire region, from the spectacular cliffs of the Fleurieu Peninsula to rugged Onkaparinga Gorge.

A number of local accommodation providers have their own helipads, which means you can get picked up from your front door and whisked away to a winery within minutes before stopping at The Currant Shed for a “fly-through" meal on your way to a private hilltop location where you’ll enjoy an unforgettable lunch.

McLaren Vale winery accommodation

After a long day of wine tasting, there’s no better feeling than disappearing to a sumptuous hideaway nestled in the vines. And whether you’re looking for a light-filled homestead with stunning views or a luxurious off-grid cabin, you’ll find a range of unforgettable stays at these McLaren Vale wineries.

Inkwell Wines

The name may be a cheeky reference to the winery’s address, but once you check into Hotel California Road you’ll probably wish you never had to leave.

The exquisitely designed adults-only escape is built from interconnected shipping containers that have been placed on top of each other like Lego blocks, and each of the suites makes the most of the surrounding vines. All you need to decide is whether you want to enjoy the views from the comfortable leather couch, deep soaking tub, giant floating king bed or spacious deck.

Gemtree

CABNX pods in McLaren Vale — The CABN X pods are the perfect spot to unwind.

This winery is big on biodynamics and soil health, but there’s no need to worry if you get your hands dirty on a farm tour. Just down the road from the cellar door, the CABN X pods are the perfect spot for a deep clean thanks to the wood-fired cedar sauna and a giant two-person outdoor tub. It’s all part of a design that maximises the natural beauty of the surroundings, and there are few better ways to wake up than the dawn chorus provided by the avian residents of the majestic redgums just metres from the deck.

Shadow Creek

A large part of McLaren Vale’s appeal is that it fits so much into one compact region. In the centre of the valley, kangaroos and sheep nibble at blades of grass shooting up between dense rows of vines, while further west ochre-coloured cliffs loom over beaches of glittering white sand. And the million-dollar views from every room in this cosy hideaway let you take it all in without having to get up from your seat.

The well-stocked Vintec wine fridge means sundowners are taken care of, whether you’re lounging on the roomy deck or curled up by the giant double fireplace that opens onto the king bedroom and living room, while the 10 trees planted per booking help to make Australia’s greenest wine region even more beautiful.

Video credit: Visit Victoria/Tourism Australia

The Grampians just might be the ultimate antidote for the metropolis, writes one returning Aussie ready to disconnect from the modern world and reconnect to the Great outdoors.

There are no kangaroos back in Chicago: they’re all here in the Grampians/Gariwerd. In the heart of the Grampians National Park’s main gateway town, Halls Gap, pods of eastern greys are eating grass beside my parked rental car beneath the stars. Next morning, when I see the backyard of my rented villa on the edge of town for the first time, there are kangaroos feeding beside a slow-moving creek, lined with river red gums.

Five hundred metres up the road, 50 or so of them are eating by the side of the road in a paddock. I pull over to watch and spot three emus. Yellow-tailed black cockatoos fly overhead towards the tall green mountains just beyond town.

‘Kee-ow, keee-oww’… their calls fuse with the maniacal cackle of a kookaburra (or 10). Gawd, how I’ve missed the sound of them. Far above, a wedge-tailed eagle watches, and there you go: the ‘great birds of Australia’ trifecta, all half a kay from the town limits.

Exchanging city chaos for country calm

kangaroos near Halls Gap, Grampians National Park — The park is renowned for its significant diversity of native fauna species. (Image: Visit Victoria/Robert Blackburn)

I’ve come to the Grampians to disconnect, but the bush offers a connection of its own. This isn’t just any bush, mind you. The Grampians National Park is iconic for many reasons, mostly for its striking sandstone mountains – five ridges run north to south, with abrupt, orange slopes which tumble right into Halls Gap – and for the fact there’s 20,000 years of traditional rock art. Across these mountains there are more than 200 recorded sites to see, created by the Djab Wurrung, Jardwadjali and Gunditjmara peoples. It’s just like our outback… but three hours from Melbourne.

I’ve come here for a chance at renewal after the chaos of my life in America’s third-largest city, Chicago, where I live for now, at the whim of a relative’s cancer journey. Flying into Melbourne’s airport, it only takes an hour’s drive to feel far away from any concept of suburbia. When I arrive in Halls Gap two hours later, the restaurant I’m eating at clears out entirely by 7:45pm; Chicago already feels a lifetime ago.

The trails and treasures of the Grampians

sunrise at Grampians National Park /Gariwerd — Grampians National Park /Gariwerd covers almost 2000 square kilometres. (Image: Ben Savage)

Though the national park covers almost 2000 square kilometres, its best-known landmarks are remarkably easy to access. From my carpark here, among the cockatoos and kangaroos on the fringe of Halls Gap, it only takes 60 seconds’ driving time before I’m winding my way up a steep road through rainforest, deep into the mountains.

Then it’s five minutes more to a carpark that serves as a trailhead for a hike to one of the park’s best vantage points, The Pinnacles. I walk for an hour or so, reacquainting myself with the smells and the sounds of the Aussie bush, before I reach it: a sheer cliff’s edge lookout 500 metres up above Halls Gap.

walking through a cave, Hollow Mountain — Overlooking the vast Grampians landscape from Hollow Mountain. (Image: Robert Blackburn)

There are hikes and there are lookouts and waterfalls all across this part of the park near town. Some are a short stroll from a carpark; others involve long, arduous hikes through forest. The longest is the Grampians Peaks Trail, Victoria’s newest and longest iconic walk, which runs 160 kilometres – the entire length of Grampians National Park.

Local activities operator Absolute Outdoors shows me glimpses of the trail. The company’s owner, Adrian Manikas, says it’s the best walk he’s done in Australia. He says he’s worked in national parks across the world, but this was the one he wanted to bring his children up in.

“There’s something about the Grampians,” he says, as he leads me up a path to where there’s wooden platforms for tents, beside a hut looking straight out across western Victoria from a kilometre up in the sky (these are part of the guided hiking options for the trail). “There are things out here that you won’t see anywhere else in Australia.” Last summer, 80 per cent of the park was damaged by bushfire, but Manikas shows me its regrowth, and tells me of the manic effort put in by volunteers from town – with firefighters from all over Australia – to help save Halls Gap.

wildflowers in Grampians National Park — Spot wildflowers. (Image: Visit Victoria)

We drive back down to Halls Gap at dusk to abseil down a mountain under the stars, a few minutes’ walk off the main road into town. We have headlamps, but a full moon is enough to light my way down. It takes blind faith to walk backwards down a mountain into a black void, though the upside is I can’t see the extent of my descent.

Grampians National Park at sunset. (Image: Wine Australian)

The stargazing is ruined by the moon, of course, but you should see how its glow lights up the orange of the sandstone, like in a theme park. When I’m done, I stand on a rocky plateau drinking hot chocolate and listening to the Aussie animals who prefer nighttime. I can see the streets of Halls Gap off in the distance on this Friday night. The restaurants may stay open until 8pm tonight.

What else is on offer in The Grampians?

a boat travelling along the Wimmera River inDimboola — Travelling along the Wimmera River in Dimboola. (Image: Chris McConville)

You’ll find all sorts of adventures out here – from rock climbing to canoeing to hiking – but there’s more to the Grampians than a couple of thousand square kilometres of trees and mountains. Halls Gap may be known to most people, but what of Pomonal, and Dimboola, and Horsham? Here in the shadow of those big sandstone mountains there are towns and communities most of us don’t know to visit.

And who knew that the Grampians is home to Victoria’s most underrated wine region? My disconnection this morning comes not in a forest, but in the tasting rooms and winery restaurants of the district. Like Pomonal Estate, barely 10 minutes’ drive east of Halls Gap, where UK-born chef Dean Sibthorp prepares a locally caught barramundi with lentil, pumpkin and finger lime in a restaurant beside the vines at the base of the Grampians. Husband-and-wife team Pep and Adam Atchison tell me stories as they pour their prize wines (shiraz is the hero in these parts).

dining at Pomonal Estate — Dine in a restaurant beside vines at Pomonal Estate. (Image: Tourism Australia)

Three minutes’ drive back down the road, long-time mates Hadyn Black and Darcy Naunton run an eclectic cellar door out of a corrugated iron shed, near downtown Pomonal. The Christmas before last, half the houses in Pomonal burnt down in a bushfire, but these locals are a resilient lot.

The fires also didn’t stop the construction of the first art centre in Australia dedicated to environmental art in a nature-based precinct a little further down the road (that’s Wama – the National Centre for Environmental Arts), which opened in July. And some of the world’s oldest and rarest grape vines have survived 160 years at Best’s Wines, outside the heritage town of Great Western. There’s plantings here from the year 1868, and there’s wines stored in century-old barrels within 150-year-old tunnels beneath the tasting room. On the other side of town, Seppelt Wines’ roots go back to 1865. They’re both only a 30-minute drive from Halls Gap.

Salingers of Great Western — Great Western is a charming heritage town. (Image: Griffin Simm)

There’s more to explore yet; I drive through tiny historic towns that barely make the map. Still part of the Grampians, they’re as pretty as the mountains behind them: full of late 19th-century/early 20th-century post offices, government offices and bank buildings, converted now to all manner of bric-a-brac stores and cafes.

The Imaginarium is one, in quirky Dimboola, where I sleep in the manager’s residence of an old National Australia Bank after a gourmet dinner at the local golf club, run by noted chef and teacher, Cat Clarke – a pioneer of modern Indigenous Australian cooking. Just south, I spend an entire afternoon at a winery, Norton Estate Wines, set on rolling calico-coloured hills that make me think of Tuscany, chit-chatting with owners Chris and Sam Spence.

Being here takes me back two decades, when I lived here for a time. It had all seemed as foreign as if I’d driven to another planet back then (from Sydney/Warrane), but there seemed something inherently and immediately good about this place, like I’d lived here before.

And it’s the Australian small-town familiarity of the Grampians that offers me connection back to my own country. Even in the better-known Halls Gap, Liz from Kerrie’s Creations knows I like my lattes with soy milk and one sugar. And while I never do get the name of the lady at the local Ampol station, I sure know a lot about her life.

Kookaburras on a tree — Kookaburras are one of some 230 bird species. (Image: Darren Donlen)

You can be a local here in a day; how good is that? In Chicago, I don’t even know who my neighbour is. Though each day at dusk – when the kangaroos gather outside my villa, and the kookaburras and the black cockatoos shout out loud before settling in to sleep – I prefer the quieter connection I get out there in the bush, beneath these orange mountains.

A traveller’s checklist

Staying there

Sleep beside the wildlife on the edge of Halls Gap at Serenity.

Playing there

abseiling down Hollow Mountain — Hollow Mountain is a popular abseiling site.

Go abseiling under the stars or join a guided hike with Absolute Outdoors. Visit Wama, Australia’s first environmental art centre. Check out Dimboola’s eccentric Imaginarium.

Eating there

steak, naan bread and beer at Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap — Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap serves a great steak on naan bread.

Eat world-class cuisine at Pomonal Estate. Dine and stay at much-revered icon Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld. The ‘steak on naan’ at Halls Gap brewhouse Paper Scissors Rock, can’t be beat.

Dunkeld Arboretum in Grampians National Park — The serene Dunkeld Arboretum.

For Halls Gap’s best breakfasts head to Livefast Cafe. Sip local wines at Great Western’s historic wineries, Best’s Wines, Seppelt Wines and Norton Estate Wines.

two glasses of beer at Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap — Sink a cold one at Paper Scissors Rock.

The only McLaren Vale wineries guide you need to read

Plan the perfect wine weekend at these standout cellar doors where you can level up your tasting with lavish lunch spreads, expert-led tours and luxe hideaways.