About South Australia and Our Wine Industry
Nardone Baker Wines is as proud to be a South Australian producer, and when you read on about our state you will soon understand why.
Apart from being a popular destination for wine tourism, South Australia generates
- half (45.5%) of the country's wine grapes - more than double that of any other State.
- half of Australia's total wine production (47.8%)
- around 60% of the country's wine exports.
We also have the largest area of vineyards (67,039 ha), accounting for 42.3% of the nation's total.
Despite all these astounding statistics, South Australia's wine industry is as diverse as it is large. Small family-run boutique wineries sit alongside major national companies producing the nation's most awarded wines. It's little wonder then that the South Australian Tourism Commission's Domestic Secrets Campaign Tracking survey (April 2001) undertaken in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane identified that South Australia is the State most associated with wine and food.
South Australia's success in the wine tourism industry has been a natural progression ever since the first vintage was recorded in the Adelaide Hills in 1841 and ambitious marketers shipped off the nation's first wine export (a case of hock) to Queen Victoria in London.
One hundred and sixty years later, when Australia's annual wine exports broke the $2 billion barrier mark for the first time in 2001-2002, eight of the top 10 wine exporting companies in Australia named South Australian wines as their flagship brands in boosting profits from overseas sales.
The State's wine exports broke the $1 billion mark in January 2002. That's about three times the next major exporting State and puts South Australia on track to reach $2.2 billion in wine exports by 2010.
Adelaide is also a leader in wine education and training. The first Diploma of Oenology students graduated in 1938 from Roseworthy Agricultural College, which is now part of the world-renowned Waite campus of Adelaide University, offering under graduate and post graduate courses in oenology and viticulture.
With more than 350 wineries and 247 cellar doors in 17 wine regions, most roads in South Australia lead to wine country.
[Material adapted from the Wine Tourism - SA Tourism Commission site www.tourism.sa.gov.au/winetourism/ and updated from other sources]
Wine Quotes & Toasts
Drink no longer water but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.
St. Paul, 1 Timothy 5:23
Good wine is a good familiar creature if it well used."
Shakespeare
Wine is the pearl in the oyster of the grape.
Charles A. Nardone, Mirabella Ranch, Texas USA
A man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry."
Ecclesiastes 8:15
Both to the rich and poor, wine is the happy antidote for sorrow.
Euripides
What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others.
Diogenes
No thing more excellent nor more valuable than wine was ever granted mankind by God."
Plato
Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages."
Louis Pasteur
Quickly bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may whet my mind and say something clever."
Euripedes
Wine is bottled poetry."
Robert Louis Stevenson
Good wine ruins the purse; bad wine ruins the stomach.
Spanish saying
Wine rejoices the heart of man and joy is the mother of all virtues."
Johann Wolfgang van Goethe
A meal without wine is like a day without sunshine."
Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
God made only water, but man made wine.
Victor Hugo
It is well to remember that there are five reasons for drinking: the arrival of a friend; one's present or future thirst; the excellence of the wine; or any other reason."
Latin saying
A waltz and a glass of wine invite an encore."
Johann Strauss
Wine is a constant proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Benjamin Franklin
Wine cheereth God and man."
Judges 9:13
Drink wine, and you will sleep well. Sleep, and you will not sin. Avoid sin, and you will be saved. Ergo, drink wine and be saved."
Medieval German saying
Wine is sunlight, held together by water."
Galileo Galilei
Now is the time for drinking, now is the time to beat the earth with unfettered foot. "
Horace
Contact Details
Admin/Production
PO Box 386, McLaren Vale, South Australia, 5171, Australia.
Sales/Distribution:
10 Gray Street, Kilkenny, South Australia, 5009, Australia
Phone +61 8 8445 8100
Fax +61 8 8445 8200
Or use our contact page