A 90-minute drive north of Adelaide lies a valley so bountiful that it isn’t actually a valley at all but several. Clare Valley – a series of dips on a high plateau – was once a paradise of market gardens and orchards, and before that, a paradise of indigenous vegetation. Today, it is a charming hodgepodge of pretty, little villages like Auburn, where Jeffrey Grosset’s winery is based; tracts of untamed land thick with eucalyptus trees that shield native fauna, including kangaroos, echidnas and burbling kookaburras, and sprawling vineyards, fringed with more trees and often attached to one of the superb winery restaurants that Australia does so well.
There have been vineyards here since the 1840s, planted by a homesick Irishman (Edward Burton Gleeson, who named the valley for County Clare); an intrepid young Englishman, John Horrocks, who would shortly die in a gun accident involving a camel named Harry; and a group of Jesuit priests, who built their Sevenhill winery before the impressive stone church that still stands beside it. This odd list feels very Clare. This is a place that has somehow retained the feel of an idyllic backwater, despite being 75 miles from the state capital, and has won an international reputation for Riesling when its latitude supposedly doesn’t suit the grape at all. This is fertile ground for contradictions; in fact, it is fertile ground for everything.
On the slate of Polish Hill, Riesling produces pure and steely wines that almost crackle with acidity, while on the terra rossa (red clay over limestone) around Auburn and Watervale, the Rieslings are rounder, more aromatic and approachable, if still pure and mineral. And while this is the most famous variety here, the most planted is Shiraz, with Cabernet Sauvignon slightly ahead of the white grape too. Arguably the most renowned winery in the region – one of the most admired in Australia, despite having no cellar door, no website and no interest in attracting customers – is Wendouree, a producer famous for serious reds.
The variety of soil types – Warrick Duthy of Watervale Hotel says he ‘likes to think of Clare as the appellation of 1,000 terroirs’ – is also kind to lesser-known varieties, from Fiano to Malbec to Jim Barry Wines’ experiment with Assyrtiko. There are blends here too, such as Grosset’s gorgeously perfumed and pretty Gaia, made from Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc planted at 1,800ft (the region’s highest vineyard). In the region’s many excellent restaurants, visitors can admire the view and drink the wines while eating the kind of dishes that make it clear why, when European settlers were denuding much of South Australia to create grazing land for sheep, they left the fruit and vegetables – and vines – of this fertile and generous valley well alone.
Six of the best Clare Valley restaurants
Watervale Hotel
This farm-to-table restaurant is a labour of love in every sense: Warrick Duthy and Nicola Palmer, partners in life as well as in business, are trying both to regenerate the land, via their farm, and refashion what that farm produces into wonderfully inventive dishes for their guests, served in a tastefully renovated historic building.
Warrick is the talker, keen to explain the oasis they are creating on a patch of land that had been worked almost to death, planting vegetables and fruit trees, local plants such as kangaroo grasses and peppermint box but also imported species, including Chinese red dates and yuzu trees. In her vast kitchen, Nicola calmly assembles a six-course menu that might begin with kingfish crudo with poached nectarine and end with lamb loin, honey-roasted beetroot, rosemary jus and whipped lamb fat – not counting a heavenly citrus tart. Warrick matches local wines from a seriously impressive cellar that includes back vintages and unicorn labels – including Wendouree.
Bush deVine @ Pauletts
Nothing in Clare Valley is far apart: the entire region is less than 20 miles, north to south. From Skillogalee Estate to Paulett Wines, in the Polish Hill River region, is an hour’s walk – not that anyone could eat at both without a rather longer hike in between. The Pauletts bought here in 1982 and, in addition to their vineyards, put in a cellar door with a high ceiling and a terrace with panoramic views of this beautiful place. Their restaurant, partly supplied by their kitchen garden, is one of the area’s finest, the dishes so pretty, with their decorations of flowers and succulents, that it’s almost a shame to eat them. But sourdough fettucine with Coffin Bay clams and native myrtle bisque, or kangaroo backstrap with spiced cauliflower and fermented blueberries, swiftly put paid to those kinds of scruples. And the estate wines are the perfect accompaniment.
Slate
With a brewery in its own building next door, a large cellar door and long wood-lined bar with double Enomatic machines dispensing judicious pours of over a dozen wines, Pikes winery is so busy it takes a while to notice the restaurant through the glass doors. There, insulated from enthusiastic wine-lovers filtering in and out or hanging at a table with a glass of something good, is a calm restaurant with a wall of glass looking onto the Pikes vines. Small plates might include chargrilled squid with blackened corn and ink mayo; among the larger servings are grilled market fish with whipped chickpea and almond butter or salt-baked pork belly with fennel puree. Their wines ably demonstrate the advantages of vineyards rooted in 500-million-year-old slate… as does the decision to name their restaurant for the soil responsible for their purity and grace.
Antidote Kitchen
The town of Clare only really has one commercial street but every other building on it appears to be a restaurant. One of them is this airy place with its corrugated iron roof, leafy plants hanging from wooden beams, impressive gin list and Indian fusion menu: Kerala prawns come with tzatziki, there are kofta made with salmon and seasoned with chilli and, while you can order curries and biriyanis, there is also the option of a Delhi burger or fries loaded with masala, mango chutney and shredded cheese. And with these spiced dishes, Clare Valley Riesling comes into its own – although Tim Adams’ Pinot Gris works well as, for that matter, does Shiraz from tiny Jeanneret, in the bush a ten-minute walk from Skillogalee.
Skillogalee Estate
Just outside Penwortham, the village founded by John Horrocks in 1839, sits Skillogalee estate – not that you would know that there is a village less than two miles away when seated on their flagstone terrace beneath the gigantic olive tree, eating and drinking with a view over orderly vineyards to the tousled trees beyond.
The sun dapples a menu that features tartare of Wagyu beef with smoked snook mayonnaise (snook is a local fish), pork belly with cauliflower cream, market-fresh fish or a seasonal specialty such as asparagus, served with hazelnut and mushrooms. Suppliers are specified and mostly local, and the excellent wines, from sparkling Riesling to Cabernet Sauvignon, are very local indeed: made on the estate, in fact.
Sevenhill Hotel
A hotel in Australia doesn’t necessarily have rooms: the designation is a hangover from when anywhere serving alcohol was obliged to offer accommodation. Whereas Watervale (above) does have guestrooms, Sevenhill is more of a pub, with one big difference that anyone who goes downstairs to eat will see: the basement restaurant is also a cellar, its walls lined with great local wines, available to take away for dangerously reasonable prices. Food is simple but well made: local fish and rosemary fries, burgers, kangaroo loin with broccolini and macadamia nuts, pulled pork and slaw. Choosing your wine, on the other hand, is hellishly difficult: Mount Horrocks Nero d’Avola? Killikanoon Grenache blend? The only solution is to drink one and leave with as many others as you can carry.
