Eden Valley High Country Wine Day

The plan

Most visitors never leave the Barossa Valley floor — and they miss half the story. The Eden Valley rises a few hundred metres to the east, a country of granite, gum forest and stone churches where the wines come out cooler, tighter and more age-worthy. This is a day for the scenic route.

Start with a climb to Mountadam, perched on the High Eden ridge, for chardonnay that rewrites what you thought the Barossa could do. From there drop in to Eden Hall for structured cabernet and riesling, then make the pilgrimage to Poonawatta (book ahead) to stand among shiraz vines planted in 1880.

Lunch and the long view

Come back down for a relaxed lunch — Sons of Eden keeps things grounded in big-hearted reds — before finishing the day at the Mengler Hill Lookout on the way home, where the whole Barossa unrolls beneath you and the sculpture trail gives your legs a stretch.

Go easy on the driving roads; they twist. Better still, take a driver and give the riesling the attention it deserves.