Six guides to the regions where the produce is made, who to buy it from directly, and when each thing is actually in season.
Our game is about clearing an orchard, and the orchard is a real one — it sits behind Marta's house in the Adelaide Hills, and it is where most of these notes started. Once you spend a season picking, you start paying attention to what ripens when, and to how short the good window for most things actually is.
These guides cover the regions we know, written for a weekend rather than a wine club membership. Each one deals with the same practical questions: what grows there, who sells it directly, when to turn up, and how to organise a day of tasting without anyone driving who should not be.
A cool-climate region close enough to the city that people underrate it, and high enough that the wines taste nothing like the valleys below.
Two famous regions within easy reach of Adelaide, close on a map and genuinely different in the glass.
Two regions an hour from the city, both cool-climate, both known for pinot and chardonnay — and not interchangeable.
Direct from the grower is cheaper, fresher and more interesting than the supermarket — provided you understand how it actually works.
Australian seasons run opposite to the northern hemisphere and shift by weeks across the continent. Here is the shape of the year.
The wine is the easy part. What goes wrong is the driving, the timing and the assumption that everything is open.