Seppeltsfield Winery

 

(Editor's Note - the internet has been really spotty on the ship here in Australia but should start to improve as we head north. Hopefully I can catch up quickly! We were in Seppeltsfield on January 13.)

Journey Beyond just recently changed the itinerary for the Indian Pacific to have the stops during the morning rather than later in the evening. Given the fact that temperatures can reach into the 40s Celsius by noon and the heat can last well into the evening, it makes lots of sense.

So we are actually on only the second journey with the new itinerary and they are still trying to work out the kinks. One of the new off train excursions is a tasting and dinner at Seppeltsfield Winery, one of the mainstays of the Barossa Valley. We were dropped off to our buses in the middle of nowhere and raced the train along a dirt road until we had to turn away from the tracks.

Once we reached the winery we had Seppeltsfield’s Bubbly and smoked popcorn – yes, smoked, at it was delicious! The executive chef for the winery, Owen Andrews, loves to come up with new and different ways to present and use local produce.

Plates of Owen's smoked popcorn

We then had a short tour of some of the heritage buildings. Seppeltsfield was established in the 1851 by the Seppelt family that immigrated from Selesia. Joseph and Joanna came with their 5 children and 19 other families from the same town. The demand for wine and spirits, especially from England, drove the success of the family business from the beginning, and along with the excellent wines they started producing fortified spirits, especially Tawny Port.

Seppeltsfield houses what is known as the Centennial Collection, an unbroken line of Tawny vintages that dates back to 1878. Benno Seppelt, the oldest son of Joseph and the force behind much of the original expansion, decided to put aside a barrel from every year’s vintage not to be consumed before it had aged for at least 100 years.

The storage house - wine on the lower floors,
port on the upper floors

Our first stop was a tasting with wines paired with some very interesting bites created by Owen. The white, rose and red we tried were among the nicest and smoothest we’ve tasted anywhere.

After our tasting, we were taken to the special port storage room where the Centennial Collection is housed, and were treated to a small taste of the 1923 vintage – that’s 102 years old! All we could say was ‘Wow’ – that they would even give us any, and then at the taste. It was very thick and syrupy with a heavily concentrated dark red colour and flavour. As the ‘cellar’ is actually on the third floor of a stone building, it allows for the natural evaporation that is required to produce a good port. And over the extreme time scale, the port loses up to 80% of its original volume.

The other special thing about this collection is that there isn’t another one like it in the whole world. And they are very careful with the oldest ones that they don’t lose any of the precious liquid and break the chain.

The small cask is for the oldest vintage. It may be 
in glass inside the barrel to prevent it from further evaporation

For recent vintages, they even have one for Princes William, Harry and George and Princess Charlotte. Maybe they haven’t created the one for Louis yet.

Our next stop was in a huge event space with enough tables for 200 of us, an open area used as a dance floor, and a stage where a trio - fiddle, guitar and keyboards - played and sang before, during and after dinner. The evening was a lot of fun, and the food was amazing too. Chef Owen outdid himself at the 'barbie' to cook the steak and chicken.

The head cooper for the winery demonstrated how
they burn the inside of the barrels to prepare
them for storing certain wines

The cheese plate dessert

Members of the train staff getting into the
dancing to start everyone off

We were driven into the Adelaide train station where all of the south Australian special trains depart - the Indian Pacific, the Ghan and the Great Southern. The train was at the platform but we still had to wait to board and depart. This time the Platinum cars were at the back end of the train as we had new engines (two now that we would have to climb into the Blue Mountains) and they were coupled at the other end.

Once back on board everyone headed for their compartments as we would be arriving in Broken Hill fairly early in the morning.