McLAREN VALE

Standing five storeys high, with dynamically offset angular faces (like a Rubik’s Cube mid-twist), the d’Arenberg Cube in McLaren Vale is winemaker Chester Osborn’s paean to the complexities and puzzles of winemaking.

It could just as well be Osborn’s tribute to this South Australian region. Like the Cube, its unique jigsaw of more than 40 geologies and growing panoply of grape varieties (37 at last count at d’Arenberg alone) are radically refreshing ‘brand McLaren Vale’.

McLaren Vale was first surveyed for European settlement by John McLaren in 1839. And it wasn’t long before English settlers, notably James Reynell and Thomas Hardy, found a ready market back in their homeland for wine. These