Mclaren Vale Wine and Heritage Tour

McLaren Vale sits between the Mount Lofty Ranges and the Gulf of St Vincent, 45 minutes south of Adelaide, and it packs more history per hectare than most wine regions twice its size.

This driving journey threads through seven locations that tell the full story of the Vale — from the winery where the first commercial vines went into the ground in the 1860s, through the Italian families who brought new grape varieties and olive oil culture, to the biodynamic producers who are giving the soil back what industrial farming took out.

Along the way, there is a five-storey architectural puzzle box, a slate quarry town built by Cornish immigrants, and a conservation park where the Kaurna people have cared for country for thousands of generations.

Expect about an hour and a quarter of driving spread across the day, with the route moving south and west from the heart of McLaren Vale to the dramatic coastal cliffs of Port Willunga.

The stops mix cellar doors with heritage sites and coastal bushland, so the rhythm shifts between tasting, walking, and looking. The final location puts you on a cliff top above a shipwreck with a glass of local wine and fresh Gulf seafood — which is, frankly, a reasonable way to finish anything.