Adelaide Hills
The cool high ground east of Adelaide, rising to 714 metres within sight of the city. Altitude is the whole proposition here: Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and sparkling base rather than the big reds grown on the plains below.
Known for
- Sauvignon Blanc
- Chardonnay
- Pinot Noir
- Shiraz
Why Adelaide Hills tastes the way it does
Altitude rather than latitude does the cooling, and sites change sharply with height and aspect. Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay are the volume, Pinot Noir and sparkling base the ambition, and cool-climate Shiraz has become a serious style. Everything is picked with more acid than the plains below.
January averages 21.1°C here and the growing season adds up to 1,690 heat units, which is moderate by Australian standards.
A short history
Vines were planted in the 1840s and the district faded through the twentieth century as tastes moved to fortified wine. It was replanted from 1979, so the modern Adelaide Hills is barely older than the wine boom it supplied.
Adelaide Hills was registered as a protected wine name in 1998, which makes the boundary a legal definition rather than a marketing one.
What your house does to a bottle from Adelaide Hills
A bottle from Adelaide Hills ages at the rate its temperature sets, not at the rate the vintage chart says. Barello's model is the physical one: every 10°C above 13°C roughly doubles the rate, and at 25°C or more you are not ageing it, you are cooking it. Pick where you live and where the bottle actually sits.
Choose a city and a spot, and this line will tell you how much faster the bottle is ageing than it would in a cellar.
This is the same model that dates every bottle in Barello. Open the app to run it against your own wine. Or read how to store wine without a cellar, or the wine temperature chart.
Adelaide Hills in numbers
| Planted vineyard | 3,831 ha | number 11 of 64 in Australia |
|---|---|---|
| Region area | 1,451 km² | 2.64% of it under vine |
| Grapes crushed | 21,093 t a year | 5.5 tonnes a hectare |
| January average | 21.1°C | number 22 coolest of 64 |
| Heat units | 1,690 | warmth added up over the growing season |
| Land in the GI rises | 149 to 714 m | the boundary, not where the vines are |
| Registered | 1998 | as a protected name |
Nearby
- McLaren Vale34 km south west, known for Shiraz instead
- Langhorne Creek44 km south east, known for Cabernet Sauvignon instead
- Eden Valley47 km north east, known for Riesling instead
Distances are between the registered centres of each region, so they are as the crow flies rather than as the road goes.
Where these numbers come from
Boundaries and figures: Wine Australia Geographical Indications register, used under CC BY 4.0. Climate figures are the register's own long-run averages, measured in the vineyard. The history and the tasting notes above are Barello's own.