Our base for exploring the Barossa is the amazing Almond Hill B&B and after a fabulous breakfast we head for our first coffee hit of the day– Blond Coffee on the main street of Angaston. It was a good choice (we come back three times before we leave), a deli style café with lots of space, great food, and large glass windows to watch the passing traffic.
We need to move on as I am keen to get to Maggie Beer’s Farm shop in time for the 2pm Cooking Demonstration. Situated on Pheasant Farm Road Nuriootpa, we walk through cages of beautiful pheasants to the farm shop stocked with Maggie’s products – all available for testing – yummy.
The food on offer is basically what is on the shelves – in a picnic basket with bread and olives. We settle for Duck, Vino Cotto and Star Anise Paté, and a bulgar wheat salad while we wait for the cooking demonstration.
The first time I heard of Maggie Beer’s was in relation to her Verjuice, she has basically taken an age old ingredient (back to Roman times) and commercialized it, and what a welcome addition to the cooks kitchen it is. The cooking demonstration uses it with Maggie’s Olive Oil and mushrooms. Simplicity itself – and divine. Despite the hassle of packing it for the journey home to NZ, I can not resist buying a bottle to take home. Maggie Beer’s byline on her logo is “A Barossa Food Tradition”. We head home replete and happy to have tasted so fully of it.
All we need is a bottle of wine to take home, so much to choose from we drive past the huge vineyards of the famous ones – Jacobs Creek, Penfolds and turn into the Stanley Lambert Wines for a tasting. We stick to reds – try their drink now Black Sheep (which we take home), taste a delectable $70 bottle and finish with a taste of their heavenly chocolate flavoured Port – just a hint of chocolate to lie alongside the rich Port flavours
