The National Wine Centre of Australia by pchamlis
When you're visiting the Botanic Gardens, it's only a hop, skip and jump over to the National Wine Centre of Australia. The Centre is officially located at Hackney Street, which is at the eastern end of North Terrace. If you're not already in the vicinity visiting the Botanic Gardens, South Australia Museum or the Art Gallery of South Australia, you can easily access the Wine Centre by boarding the "Adelaide Free Bus", which stops at the Botanic Gardens.The building itself is an interesting example of modern Australian architecture, with lots of glass and polished light woods in evidence. There's also a restaurant and bar on the premises.
The Centre itself can give you information on Australia's 53 different wine regions. There are exhibits and displays that will even allow you to select and blend your own "virtual wine".
And needless to say, there is a tasting gallery, where you can purchase and/or sample quite a few local wines. The Centre itself has a vineyard and produces some of its own vintages.
Admission information:
A$11 for adults, A$6 for children under 18. (Kids have to be accompanied by an adult) BTW, you do NOT have to pay this admission fee to visit the tasting gallery and wine shop areas. The Centre is open Monday-Fridays, 9 am - 5:30 pm. It's closed on Good Friday and Christmas.
www.wineaustralia.com.au
telephone 08 8222 9288We enjoyed our little red wine tasting session. In all honesty, we didn't really find any of the group offered to be extraordinary*, but we DID learn a bit more about the fine art of tasting and evaluating vintages.
*And, we do not mean to, by any means, insult the wine-growing and production notoriety of South Australia. We have, on many occasions, had WONDERFUL wines from the area. It's just that during the "tasting" at the center, the vintages served were "average". The cost of participating in a tasting wasn't very high, so I'm sure that we didn't come across any 94 and above Wine Spectator-rated wines. ; )
