There is a particular kind of morning that belongs to the Adelaide Hills. Cool, eucalypt-scented, the light coming in at that low winter angle that makes everything look slightly more beautiful than it probably deserves. The freeway dissolves into winding roads through Stirling and Bridgewater, the city falls away, and suddenly you are in wine country – properly, unhurriedly in it – only 30 minutes from the CBD.
The Adelaide Hills is one of Australia’s most underrated wine regions, which is a strange thing to say about a place with more than 50 cellar doors, internationally garlanded producers and wines that compete comfortably with anything the Barossa or McLaren Vale can offer. The difference is altitude and temperature. Up here, cooler air and long ripening seasons produce wines of precision and freshness: sauvignon blanc and riesling with genuine crispness, chardonnays of real elegance, pinot noirs that reward the cellar. It is white wine country first and foremost, but the reds have been quietly getting very good.
Here are five wineries worth building your day – or your weekend – around.
If there is one name that has defined the Adelaide Hills wine story, it is Shaw + Smith. Founded in 1989 by cousins Martin Shaw and Michael Hill Smith – Australia’s first Master of Wine – it remains the benchmark by which other producers in the region measure themselves.
The cellar door in Balhannah is open daily, perched above the vineyard with clean-lined contemporary architecture and a cold larder menu of local cheeses, charcuterie and seasonal produce to accompany your tasting. Book a wine flight (bookings are strongly recommended) and let your host walk you through the range – the sauvignon blanc that has been the region’s calling card for decades, the single-vineyard chardonnays from Lenswood that reward the cellar, the M3 Chardonnay that is simply one of the finest whites produced in Australia.
What to put in the car: The 2024 Lenswood Vineyard Pinot Noir has been rated 96 points and described as a triumph – cellar it until 2035 and feel quietly smug. The 2025 Sauvignon Blanc is bright and immediate, passionfruit and lime, ready now.
136 Jones Road, Balhannah. Open daily 11am–5pm.
This is where the Adelaide Hills gets genuinely surprising. Owned by Larry Jacobs – who left a career as an intensive care doctor to found Mulderbosch Vineyards in South Africa before relocating to Australia – Hahndorf Hill has done something no other Australian winery has quite pulled off: made Austrian grape varieties a serious proposition.
Grüner Veltliner, Blaufränkisch, Zweigelt, St Laurent – these are not names that trip off the Australian wine lover’s tongue, but they should be. The Grüner, in particular, is extraordinary: peppery, mineral, arrestingly food-friendly in a way that sauvignon blanc simply is not. Hahndorf Hill pioneered these varieties in Australia and has won gold medals at European wine competitions for them.
The cellar door is set in the heart of the vineyard with an upstairs gallery room overlooking the vines. Book the ChocoVino experience – premium wines matched to the world’s finest chocolate – and prepare to have your assumptions about what goes with what cheerfully dismantled.
What to put in the car: A half-case of the Grüner Veltliner for the cellar, and a bottle of the Blaufränkisch to open at dinner this weekend. Neither will make sense to your friends until they taste them. Then they will ask where to get some.
38 Pain Road, Hahndorf. Open Monday–Saturday 10am–5pm, Sunday 11am–5pm.
Some names carry weight, and Petaluma is one of them. Founded by Brian Croser in 1976 and now part of the Lion portfolio, Petaluma has been making benchmark Adelaide Hills wines for nearly 50 years. The cellar door in Woodside – a converted farmstead with panoramic views over the hills – is forty minutes from Adelaide and feels like a different world.
The Croser sparkling range, made from Piccadilly Valley fruit at altitude, is the star: refined, precise traditional-method wines that have nothing to apologise for in international company. The still wines – Riesling, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon – are equally serious. This is a cellar door where you can spend an hour over a grazing platter without feeling you need to hurry.
The Horse Trail Ride and Tasting is one of the more memorable wine experiences in the country – saddling up and exploring the vineyards on horseback before a guided tasting — and well worth booking ahead if that sounds like your kind of afternoon.
What to put in the car: Croser Late Disgorged Sparkling for a special occasion – it will age magnificently. The 2023 Riesling for the cellar: high acidity, beautiful fruit, will reward ten years of patience.
254 Pfeiffer Road, Woodside. Open daily.
Set on 42 hectares in Balhannah with views across the Onkaparinga Valley, The Lane is where the Adelaide Hills experience becomes genuinely immersive. The contemporary tasting room is beautiful. The restaurant – anchored by a Provenance degustation menu using local and seasonal ingredients – is one of the best in the hills. And the wines: elegant, site-driven, consistently excellent.
The Lane has quietly built a reputation for chardonnay and sparkling that rivals anything in the region. The Reunion Chardonnay, sourced from a single old-vine block on the property, is the wine to seek out. Blend-your-own experiences and vineyard tours are available for those who want to go deeper – but honestly, a long lunch on the terrace with a tasting flight is a fine day in itself.
What to put in the car: The Reunion Chardonnay if you can find it – it is worth cellaring for five to seven years. The Beginning Sparkling for Friday nights: fresh, lively, made from estate chardonnay and pinot noir and one of the better value sparklings in the Hills.
5 Ravenswood Lane, Hahndorf. Open daily — bookings essential for the restaurant.
The youngest of the five – founded in 2004 – Sidewood has made up for lost time with $12 million in winery investment and a commitment to sustainable viticulture that has made it the largest sustainably certified winery in the Adelaide Hills. The cellar door and restaurant, set in a converted apple shed in Verdun, is a genuinely lovely space: indoor and outdoor seating, lawn games, and an upcycled aesthetic that manages to feel both casual and considered.
The wine range runs from estate chardonnay and pinot noir to gamay and pinot gris, and the Mappinga single-vineyard range is where the real excitement sits. The Sabrage masterclass – learning the traditional art of opening a bottle of sparkling with a sabre – is theatrical, slightly ridiculous, and absolutely worth doing.
What to put in the car: The Mappinga Shiraz is the cellar pick – dense, cool-climate, built to age. The Nearly Naked range (premium zero-alcohol wines) is worth picking up for those in your life who aren’t drinking: they are far better than that category has any right to be.
Onkaparinga Valley Road, Verdun. Open daily (hours vary seasonally — check ahead).
The Adelaide Hills is an easy day trip from Adelaide, but an overnight stay in Hahndorf or Stirling turns it into something more leisurely and considerably more fun. Book your cellar door experiences in advance, particularly on weekends – the better ones fill up quickly. Designate a driver or look into one of the region’s hop-on, hop-off tour services, which pick up from Adelaide and run scheduled routes between cellar doors. And bring a cooler bag: the boot of the car fills up faster than you expect.
The region runs its own wine events calendar – Chardonnay Month in May, Winter Reds in July, Sparkling Spring from September to November – each of which gives you a reason to return in a different season and drink something different. Which, in the Adelaide Hills, is always a very good idea.