Charles Rawlings-Way

Australia’s charming climates and picturesque landscapes are a recipe for some of the world’s finest wines. You’ll find more than 100 grapes grown across our leading wine regions, which are concentrated in South Australia’s Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale, NSW’s Hunter Valley, Victoria’s Yarra Valley and beyond. You could spend weeks jumping between cellar doors in each region, sipping fine wines all day long – but that’s probably not entirely sensible. Why not start with our 30 top picks, and take it from there? Whether you opt to journey as part of a group or embark on an impromptu self-guided tour, these are the wineries to uncork. RECOMMENDED: Plan your winery tour around a meal at one of Australia’s best restaurants.

There’s always time for a tipple when you’re travelling around Australia. Our thirsty country is swimming in stellar watering holes that are loved by locals and tourists alike. We’ve even got a handful of contenders on the World’s 50 Best Bars list to back us up. Whether you’re looking for the best spot for cleverly crafted cocktails or a natural wine bar with superb snacks, drink your way through our selection of the best bars in Australia. After a meal? Check out the best restaurants in Australia here.

Combining seriously stylish design with access to abundant fresh produce from the surrounding wine regions, Adelaide’s restaurant scene has the best of both city and regional dining. Forward thinking mod oz cuisine is informed by food traditions from across the world, which are also visible in everything from Afghan comfort food to Parisian classics and what might be Australia’s first pizza restaurant. The accompanying wine lists are just as wide-ranging, encompassing powerful Barossa reds, spritzy natural wines and everything in between, all served by knowledgeable staff. And the best bit? Even the extended degustations sit at a price point that will come as a pleasant surprise to East Coast diners. Thirsty? Kick on at one of the best bars in Adelaide right now.

Forget the ‘City of Churches’ tag – Adelaide has just as many pubs, not to mention bars of all persuasions, which have ridden a boom in recent years following a tweak to licencing laws that now allow small bars to serve booze without food.  From city-fringe craft beer nooks to gin and whisky dens taking design cues from across the planet, there’s a bar here to suit every mood and tipple of choice. Adelaide is also a UNESCO ‘City of Music’, so expect to hear some live jazz, an acoustic troubadour or at least a DJ spinning rock classics while you quench your thirst. Oh, and don’t forget the wine. Given that South Australia is the nation’s wine-producing heartland, you can expect nothing but top bottles here. The best bars in Adelaide – the ‘City of Booze Bunkers’ – are waiting for you. Want to stay sober? These are the best things to do in Adelaide.

Standing in a McLaren Vale vineyard on a hot summer afternoon, gazing across the vines to the shimmering Gulf St Vincent, this place could be Tuscany... But that’s just the wine-tasting talking. McLaren Vale is definitively South Australian – and at just 45 minutes south of Adelaide, it’s also one of the most easily accessible wine regions in the country. Backed by the rippling topography of the Willunga Scarp, McLaren Vale’s agrarian landscape is a gorgeous patchwork of vineyards that was, at one stage, nominated for World Heritage listing. Shiraz grows ridiculously well in the Vale’s deep terra rossa limestone soils – but with 80-plus cellar doors to visit, you’ll also find grenache, sangiovese, fiano, vermentino and other Med styles with which to blur your afternoon. Grab a map at the visitor centre, get someone else to drive, and start tasting. Heading a different direction? No problem. Check out our list of the best wineries in the Barossa. 

Take Main North Road out of Adelaide and keep going for an hour and a half. As you roll into Ngadjuri Country, photogenic little Auburn marks the southern bookend of the Clare Valley. There’s a real shift in the landscape here: the silos and rolling wheatfields of the Mid North district give way to vineyards, historic stone villages and sheltered creek beds studded with huge old redgums. Clare itself, the valley’s northern bookend, is just 24 kilometres further on: in between are 50-plus wineries (around 30 cellar doors), bottling up mineral-rich reds, semillon and riesling to rival the world’s best. Snaking through it all is the 33km Riesling Trail, a disused rail line that’s been converted into a bike/hike path, taking you past some of the valley’s top cellar doors. So saddle up and get sipping. Would rather stay in the city? Check out our list of the best things to do in Adelaide.

Just a tick over 64km north of Adelaide, the compact Barossa Valley is one of the world’s great wine regions. This is traditional Peramangk and Ngadjuri country, with baking hot summers, cool winters and mineral-rich soils – perfect conditions for producing big, beefy red wines. Shiraz is the local hero, with some mighty fine rieslings emerging from the slightly higher, slightly cooler Eden Valley sub-region, just over the rise. There are more than 150 wineries in the Barossa, and an astonishing 80-plus cellar doors. You could spend weeks going between them, sipping fine wines all day long – but that’s probably not entirely sensible. Why not start with our 13 top picks, and take it from there?

We’re not sure who Mae is or why she’s feeling so uncertain, but her underground speakeasy sure is cool. Cocktails, fine wine and retro-rock vibes make for a seductive combo, underpinned by a local and sustainable ethos. Duck in for a quick G'n'T after work and stay till 2am. The hardest part is finding the unsigned door (hint: it doesn’t look anything like a door). Head upstairs to Bread and Bone Wood Grill afterward if you’ve worked up an appetite (burgers and dogs FTW).

It's a little bit French and a big bit classy. La Buvette has raised the late-night drinking scene in Adelaide’s West End to new heights. Not to yuck anyone's yums, but most of the booze rooms around here are either mainstream haunts with muscled-up/mini-skirted clientele or old-school strip clubs of endlessly ill repute. La Buvette delivers something far more refined: fine French wines and aperitifs in understated laneway surrounds.

Adelaide’s East End is a high-rent scene: for a bar to make it here, it’s gotta be good. NOLA (shorthand for New Orleans, Louisiana – the mood here is very Deep South) has proven it’s got what it takes. A killer range of whiskies, boundless craft beer, Cajun eats (chow down on cornbread, grits, po’boys and fried chicken) and regular jazz maintains the bayou buzz.

Spinning off from Clever Little Taylor, one of Adelaide’s pioneering small bars is equally petite – a micro-wide cabin wedged into an alleyway off buzzy Leigh Street. The room at the front is where the drinking happens, leading into a courtyard with a food shack out the back – wood-fired, slow-cooked meats are the specialty of the house. It’s an innovative and compact example of how small can be mighty; just don’t walk past too fast or you’ll miss it.

Check out that façade! Built in 1901, Electra House is fronted by some serious stonework – all Corinthian columns, shapely balusters and muscle-clad gargoyles. Inside, the Chamber Bar is also a knockout, with six-metre-high ceilings, black-cane barstools, tan leather booths, mosaic tiles and tall windows the size of pool tables. It's a favourite haunt of barristers and bankers drinking Tanqueray and cocktails, and on a balmy night, you can dress to impress and hit up the jaunty brick-and-glass Garden Bar.

Real-estate agents tout ‘location, location, location’ as the winning triad, but at Bank Street Social the formula is ‘local, local, local’ (as applicable to beer, wine and spirits). Head downstairs and lean into the no-frills vibes: exposed brickwork and chunky timber beams set the scene for fab drinking den worthy of any occasion. It’s a laid-back space offering sweet relief from Hindley Street’s red-necked heartland, and live vinyl spinners and fab pizzas seal the deal.

Sail your yacht down Gilbert Place in Adelaide’s West End and moor yourself at Haines and Co for the evening. The nautical theme is a little out of whack in downtown Adelaide but charming in its own slightly incongruous way: think wall-mounted anchors and boats in bottles. And since the bar is apparently cobbled together from chunks of the old Largs Bay jetty, this shipshape aesthetic certainly passes muster. It’s a handsome port in a storm and a beaut of a bar, perfect for a gin on a hot afternoon or a rum on a cold night.

The name 2KW is shorthand for No 2 King William St. But don’t go looking for it at street level – it’s eight floors above your head. And whoa – check out the view! If the show-stopping panorama beyond North Terrace to the Adelaide Oval isn’t enough to win you over, 2KW’s ace menu, especially its wine offering, and intimate series of spaces certainly will. Getting up to the city's best rooftop bar is part of the fun, involving a double elevator ride to the top storey.

Adelaide and its hilly backdrop are home to around two dozen gin distilleries – welcome to the gin capital of Australia. One of the city’s flagship downtown distillers, Prohibition, gives the gin thing a 1920s spin. Its tasting room features a wall of interesting botanicals to ensnare the senses and inspire conversation. The ‘Next Door Bar’ is a more intimate cocktail room, but you can admire the chunky square gin bottles decking the bar in either space.

This Goodwood Road taproom is barely in the titular suburbs: at around 1km from Adelaide’s CBD, ‘city fringe’ might be a better description. Beyond a big grey roller door, the space opens out into a roomy, industrial beer hall with crafty pale ale, English bitter and heavyweight black IPA ready to be pulled into some pints. For those in search of old school pub energy, especially if you take your beer seriously, this is the boozer for you.

The question of the absent hill doesn’t seem to bother anyone at Penny’s Hill, just off the main road linking McLaren Vale and the historic village of Willunga. Or maybe the road’s gentle incline is the hill? Hmmm… But forget the nomenclature: everybody’s here to try some fine Penny’s Hill wine, the quality of which is beyond question.  The winery has expanded since its first vintages in the early 1990s, buying-up pastoral leases and wine blocks around ‘Ingleburne’, a handsome two-storey stone homestead from pre-20th century days. Ambitious, sure – but why not, when the dirt underfoot (sandy loam over clay) is so conducive to growing grapes. Shiraz and grenache are the leading lights here—but winemaker Alexia Roberts also knows a thing or two about wine from the adjacent Adelaide Hills. Tapping into the Hills’ altitude, chilly nights and valley mists, cool-climate sauvignon blanc from Kuitpo and chardonnay from a Piccadilly Valley holding broaden the tasting experience at the Penny’s Hill cellar door. Such a shame the restaurant has closed! Spending the weekend in Willunga? Check out Port Willunga Beach for a sunny afternoon.

It’s perhaps ironic that one of McLaren Vale’s most widely recognised wines – Wirra Wirra’s eternally popular allrounder Church Block – is a blend, not a purist varietal. But really, when a blend is this palatable (merlot/shiraz/cab sav), there’s not much room for singular snobbery. Church Block is a stone-cold winner by any measure – but if you are after something more specific, Wirra Wirra does a classic McLaren Vale shiraz too (plus grenache, sauvignon blanc, riesling, chardonnay…all with a sustainable, biodynamic bias).  You could spend the whole day here, cavorting on the lawns; exploring the historic, vaulted-brick facilities (parts of which are 125 years old – tours from $40); and quaffing coffee and eating panini at Harry’s Deli. But most folks are here to lean on the woody tasting bar and enjoy some of McLaren Vale’s richest, most fulsome wines and decadent stickies (tastings from $10 – book ahead). Check out ‘Woodhenge’ on your way out – a quirky fence made from massive chunks of McLaren Vale redgum. Looking to explore a little more local history? Head over to the South Australian Museum.