South Australia
Straddling
the centre of the Australian continent, South Australia is the wine
industry's powerhouse State, producing most of the nation's wine and
boasting some of the oldest individual vines in the world. The
Venerable old vines found in South Australia's Barossa Valley and
Adelaide Hills, through their
isolation, survived the great phylloxera
plagues that wiped out the
vines of
North America and Europe, and
somewhat later, devastated Australia's eastern
vineyards. Quarantine
restrictions were introduced, saving South Australia's vines from
Phylloxera, and ensuring the State
retained its grape growing status.In addition to being host to some of the world's oldest vines, the state also has a diversity of regions rangingfrom the relatively warm temperate climate of the Barossa Valley through to the maritime precincts of the McLAren Vale, Southern Fleurieu, Currency Creek and on the Fleurieu Peninsula and across the cooler Adelaide Hills region to the hotter Riverland region on the Murray River.
The south-eastern part of the State includes the Limestone Coast zone and the "terra rossa" soils overlying limestone which give rise to district elegant reds of the Coonawarra region. The "Limestone Coast" zone - which also includes the Padthaway, Wrattonbully and Mount Benson regions - is buiding its own reputation for wines that are not only influenced by the region's eponymous limestone but the tempering breezes of the nearby Southern Ocean.
