Adelaide Hills

SAMANTHA PAYNE explains why this South Australian wine district is having its phoenix moment.

- SAMANTHA PAYNE

Whenever I drive from Adelaide, the sights and smells of the gum trees and the forest surrounding the road signify the start of the Adelaide Hills. It’s the point of demarcation from leaving the city and entering wine country. The trees that surround and almost hide Brendon and Kirsty Keys’ winery (and their cool half-pipe) at BK Wines. The scents of eucalyptus that surround crushed pinot gris grapes at David Bowley’s Vinteloper.

It’s why my heart broke in the summer of 2020 when an uncontrollable bushfire raged through 1100 hectares of vines in the region, affecting 60 growers and winemakers, roughly a third of the region’s wine production. There were stories of survival, notably the one about Geoff Merrill jumping into the dam on his property (along with some of the kangaroo and wallaby population) to wait out the fires. Then there were stories of heartbreak, when the smoke settled and Bowley at Vinteloper realised that the fires decimated 24,000 of his 27,000 planted vines.

So three vintages on, from the levelling of 25,000 hectares in the Adelaide Hills, what have we learned as we go from “once in a lifetime” to the “new norm” of catastrophic weather events?

“There is no playbook for when your entire property burns,” says Bowley, winemaker/owner at Vinteloper.