Experience the best of Barossa Valley

Lutheran settlers from Prussia and Silesia arrived in the 1840s and planted vines, and their stone churches, farmhouses and bakeries still shape the valley's towns. Tanunda, Nuriootpa and Angaston are the main centres, linked by roads that run between rows of vines and low, dry hills. Some of the Shiraz vines here are well over a century old.

Cellar doors, many in old stone buildings, line the roads around Tanunda and Lyndoch. The Whispering Wall, a curved reservoir dam where a murmur at one end carries to the other, is a local curiosity, and Mengler's Hill Lookout gives a wide view over the valley floor. The cooler Eden Valley, known for Riesling, rises to the east, and the Adelaide Hills lie to the south.

German cooking survives in the region's smallgoods, with mettwurst, cured meats, sourdough bread and cakes such as streuselkuchen, alongside olive oil and farm produce. The grape harvest falls in the first months of the year, and autumn turns the vineyards gold.