The Adelaide Hills Wine Region is part of the Mt Lofty Ranges on the eastern side of the City of Adelaide. It is bounded by the Eden Valley and Barossa Valley wine regions to the north and the McLaren Vale wine region to the south. The region celebrates in the Crush Festival every March.

The undulating topography of the Adelaide Hills generates a wide range of microclimates but the region is generally cooler and moister than Adelaide and the coastal plain. There are three subregions, Gumeracha, Lenswood and Piccadilly Valley, but even this finer classification does not do justice the complex topography.

Each individual site seems to have its own combination of soil, altitude and aspect influencing the quality of the grapes. Many wineries are using the cooler environment to grow early maturing varieties, Viognier and Pinot gris are popular white wine varieties, while Tempranillo and the major Italian red varieties are also attracting interest.

Appropriately, the German themed village of Hahndorf has a winery using the German grape varieties Lemberger and Trollinger. Of all the South Australian regions this one is probably best suited to Pinot gris. Sangiovese seems to be attracting some attention as well.

Touring the Adelaide Wine Region is an easy and enjoyable day trip from the city of Adelaide. There are plenty of boutique wineries with cellar door sales interspersed among other small scale artisan food outlets, historic buildings, various accommodation and restaurants.

Why not tour this region is style? You can do a wonderful one day trip from Adelaide including the best wineries, lunch and excellent commentary. Let someone else do the driving and planning with this limousine service.

Adelaide Hills wineries using alternative grape varieties include

You can see an excellent interactive map of the Adelaide Hills wine region here