10 McLaren Vale small-batch wineries open by appointment
Cellar doors you can't just walk into - for repeat visitors who have done the big names
The second McLaren Vale
If you have already tasted your way through d'Arenberg, Wirra Wirra, Hardys Tintara and Chapel Hill, it is time to meet the other McLaren Vale - the one built on four-barrel ferments, single-block shiraz and cellar doors that live inside a working shed. Ten of the Vale's most interesting producers are now appointment-only, and the list below is where we send serious drinkers when they ask what to do on their third or fourth visit.
Appointment-only is not a velvet rope. It is a sign the winemaker is pouring the wine personally, that the tasting room has six seats, not sixty, and that the estate cannot absorb walk-ins without pulling someone off a forklift. Treat it accordingly.
Booking etiquette
Book at least 48 hours ahead, 72 on a weekend, and more in vintage (February to April) when everyone is in the winery at 4am. A fee of around forty to sixty dollars a head is standard, redeemable against a purchase of a bottle or two. Tell the cellar door when you book if you are buying or just tasting - both are fine, but they will pour differently. Arrive on time, not early. Allow 75 to 90 minutes per visit and never try to fit more than two of these into a single afternoon. Your palate cannot handle it and the winemakers will know.
Ranked by who we send first-timers to
The list is not ranked by score. It is ranked by who we send repeat visitors to first, based on the combination of wine quality, winemaker generosity and the strength of the experience itself. Every one of these is a proper cellar door in the old-fashioned sense - a person, a place, and the actual wine being made right there behind the tasting bench.
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1McLaren Vale
Bekkers Wine
Emmanuelle and Toby Bekkers pour single-vineyard grenache and syrah from a glass-walled tasting room in the middle of their estate. Tiny production, legendary restraint, and the quietest 90 minutes you will spend in the Vale.
See place → -
2
McLaren ValeSamuel's Gorge
Justin McNamee works out of an 1853 stone barn on a ridge above the gorge. Tempranillo, grenache and mourvedre poured straight from the barrel on a good day, with a view back over the Onkaparinga valley.
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3McLaren Vale
Aphelion Wine Co
Rob Mack is obsessed with grenache and it shows. Appointment tastings run through four single-vineyard expressions at a stripped-back cellar door that still smells of last year's ferment. Book ahead - he does every pour himself.
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4McLaren Vale
Yangarra Estate Vineyard
Biodynamic, Rhone-focused, and home to some of the oldest grenache bush vines in Australia. The High Sands tasting is the one to book - strictly limited, single-block, and the whole point of coming.
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5McLaren Vale
In Praise of Shadows
Tom Shobbrook's natural-wine project in a shed off Blewitt Springs Road. Skin-contact whites, whole-bunch reds and wines that taste like nothing else in the Vale. Bookings are tight and the seating is a bench.
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6McLaren Vale
Sabella Vineyards
Fourth-generation Italian family, third-generation vineyards, and a tiny appointment cellar door pouring nero d'Avola, fiano and sangiovese straight from estate fruit. Nonna-level hospitality if you mention food.
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7McLaren Vale
Sew & Sew Wines
Jodie Armstrong's small-batch label built on clever blends and cleaner winemaking than most people attempt. Tastings are short, structured and poured by whichever of the team is in that morning. Worth the booking.
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8McLaren Vale
Brash Higgins
Brad Hickey ferments nero d'Avola in amphora and makes a zibibbo skin-contact white you will not forget. The cellar door is a shed on the Omensetter Vineyard and the tastings are as much about the method as the wine.
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9McLaren Vale
Ministry of Clouds
Julian Forwood and Bernice Ong make restrained, cool-vintage-leaning wines from McLaren Vale and the Clare. The cellar door sits above the Onkaparinga gorge and the grenache-tempranillo blend is a Vale benchmark.
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10McLaren Vale
Somos Wines
Mauricio Ruiz Cantu's natural-leaning, Mediterranean-variety project. Counoise, grenache, monastrell and a fiano worth the drive. Small cellar door, small pours, big conversations.
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