Our daughter’s involvement in a wedding in the South East of South Australia and our offer to look after her children while she and her husband were at the wedding and surrounding events gave us just the excuse to visit The Coonawarra, one of Australia’s most famous wine regions. In my case, it had been about a decade since I had visited and, for my favourite person, much longer.

The Coonawarra is about 400kms from Adelaide, making it about a 4 hour 30 trip assuming a short break somewhere like Tintinarra or Keith.

The road to Keith is well travelled as it’s the main highway to Melbourne, and just short of Keith, there is a turn-off for the Riddoch Highway that took us through Padthaway past Naracoorte and onto our destination of Penola in the heart of The Coonawarra.

The Coonawarra is a designated wine region that was hard fought for in the late 1990s, finally getting its own designation in 2003 as part of the Limestone Coast Region. There are just over 20 wineries in the region. It is a mix of the big corporates such as Penfolds, Treasury (owner of Wynns) and large family wine companies such as Casella (owner of Brands Laira) and Yalumba, along with smaller concerns such as Whistle Stop and Raidis.

The Coonawarra is a historically significant region, with wine having been made and exported from the region since the late 1800s. Its famed Terra Rossa soil has made Cabernet Sauvignon the toast of the region.

A brochure on the region encapsulates why I conducted my PhD research on family wine businesses:

“Together our landscape, our people and passion, work in harmony to create a signature wine region … producing wines that unmistakable speak of their place and reflect the character of their makers”

I’d go further that it’s a region that also speaks of its past and its founders. Its past is reflected in its terroir and the famous red soil (Terra Rossa), and Wynns Winery, the spiritual home of the region and where Scottish immigrant John Riddoch planted vineyards in 1891.

Wynns epitomises this. Wynns has, for a number of years, been part of the Treasury Wine Group, yet it remains clearly grounded in its location and its history. There is a sense of place that transcends it’s being owned by a public company. Sure they have cultivated this, but to their credit, there is authenticity at Wynns that is not always evident in the big corporates in this industry, and it is something that family wine businesses jealously guard.

It has been interesting how these elements of authenticity, place and, with it, the intangible of terroir have permeated my thinking both during and after the completion of my PhD. My interest in wine has increased beyond what it tastes like to the story the wine conveys. I guess that’s why my PhD strap line was “The story is in the bottle” because so often it is.

Back to our journey. Soon after passing through Padthaway and Naracoorte, we were in the Coonawarra. We’d hoped to make a pit stop at the historic Bellwether Wines, but roadworks meant we couldn’t take the turn-off, so that’s one for next time.

We arrived in Penola midafternoon to find it pretty much deserted.

We decided to see if we could find a light afternoon snack, but pretty much everything in that department was shut, and we didn’t notice the supermarket unit until a bit later. We called into the Royal Oak Hotel as we had a late dinner booking which we were looking to bring forward. The Royal Oak has a long history, operating by 1850 and a source of alcohol for those travelling to the Victorian Goldfields.

The information centre was nearby and is impressive for a town of its size. There are interesting displays describing the development of the region. Petticoat Lane, with its historic buildings, none of which were open, also made an interesting streetscape. The Mary MacKillop Centre and church were also open.

I am not Catholic; however, I have an interest in Mary MacKillop through a Sister who I had peer-to-peer mentored some years ago and whose PhD was about Mary MaCkillop’s journey to Sainthood.

Mary MacKillop is Australia’s first Saint and has a close association with Penola. Saint Mary established the Sisters of St Joseph and co-founded the school. Her story is synonymous with the town.

It’s a lovely but quiet town. We enjoyed a very pleasant meal at the Royal Oak accompanied by a Penley Estate Cabernet and walked back to our accommodation, a lovely apartment supplied as part of our tour package with Coonawarra Experiences.

We had two days of wine touring indispersed with 2 days of looking after our grandchildren, so we decided to have an early night.

That said, there was not a lot on offer for those looking for a big night in Penola!