Food, wine and golf combine in South Australia’s Clare Valley, where ceviche with a twist, crisp Riesling and rolling fairways offer a feast for the senses. Join us on a delicious journey through pubs, vineyards and fairways.
As the late and great Anthony Bourdain can tell us still via the archival magic of the YouTube, ceviche is a popular meal found throughout Latin America and the national dish of Peru. However, I am here to tell a man, nobody does it better than the chefs in a pub in the Clare Valley of South Australia.
Ceviche? It’s thick cuts of fresh fish, marinated – or as Peruvians would say, “cooked” – in lime and other citrus juices, and topped with chilli, coriander and whatever combination of red and green stuff you might toss thereupon. Mint? Perfect. Spring onion? Knock yourself out. Ice cream? Yeah … not so much.
Or so they would have you believe! Because, hold the phone, sports fans, for while on honeymoon in Peru, food types Warrick Duthy and Nicola Palmer fell in love with ceviche. Long story short, the couple returned to Australia and bought and renovated the Watervale Hotel, a cracking old pub just outside Clare in the Clare Valley, north of Adelaide.
They surrounded the place with gardens for fresh vegetables, secured a contact in the north for the finest kangaroo, camel and goat, and turned the pub into one of Australia’s greatest-ever gastro-pubs. And their signature dish is ceviche with a twist – sorbet.
“We never saw it with sorbet in Peru; that was Nicola’s idea,” explains Warrick. “She loves the balance of the cool of the sorbet and heat of the chili. The sorbet also keeps the fish cool in summer. We made it into an ever-present signature dish because we are in Watervale – with the citrus and mint sorbet it is the perfect match to a Watervale Riesling.”
Golf? A golf hook? Patience, friend. For were you to find yourself in Adelaide for a sporting event – let’s say, oh, pick one at random, LIV Adelaide – and you thought that complementing a day or three of sports action with a day or three playing golf and drinking wine and eating for Australia, the Clare Valley is 90 minutes north of the city though bright yellow fields of canola, and a stop for vanilla slice in the town of Tarlee.
The Clare Valley is three valleys, one of them founded by Polish people who settled the land in 1850-something because they wished to practise their version of Christianity away from harassment. For a valley, it’s actually quite high at 610m at its peak, and thus hot summer days are complemented by cool nights; conditions which produce the finest Riesling in the land.
What happens, according to my guide Tim Grigg of Clare Valley Wine Tours, is that the grape – what they call “the fruit” – ripens in such a way as to produce … well, I don’t really follow the process. Something about “acidity”, “minerality”, something-something. Regardless, it’s a nothing-short-of-perfect accompaniment for one of the world’s great ceviche.
We begin the tour at Pikes Wines, where we enjoy “The Merle” – a reserve Riesling named after a founding grandparent. I try several others, all delicious. Wish I had the words, but, again, does it matter? According to the tasting notes there’s a “powerful core of mineral acidity” and “citrus notes, classic Polish Hill River purity” which “you can drink now or let age elegantly” is all good to know, though superfluous. My tasting notes just have “delicious”.
A hook for Pikes Wines and other cellar doors hereabouts is that their produce is sold only on site; you can’t buy this kit in Dan Murphy’s. They sell that as a plus. You can get Pikes’ iconic long-necked bottle, the one with the fish on the front, but the “Damside” chardonnay is only sold on site, and for a souvenir, certainly beats the Bubba Gump hat I bought in Las Vegas.
We are joined by a man in a beard who runs the brewery next door. Do you enjoy beer and would you like to visit? He enquires seductively. I reply with words to the effect of, have enquiries about membership of the Perth Bears NRL club been reaching a Perth Bears, er, social club? The answer is of course, yes, my good man.
And over we hop to the finely named Pikes Beer Company to enjoy their signature Pilsener, a hoppy IPA and a Raspberry Berliner Weisse which would go down well on a Sunday afternoon as a band played in the sun in the adjacent beer garden.
For lunch at Pauletts’ Bush Devine Winery Restaurant we enjoy six wines which match six delicious mouthfuls of oysters, sashimi, scallops and wagyu beef surprise. Dear God, it’s good, and it’s all we can do to not sit there all afternoon and take on Paulett’s menu suggestion of “Long Lunch”.
Instead, we’re off to Sevenhill Cellars with its oak barrels and history. It was founded by Jesuits in 1851 to produce sacramental wine. Our man Tim suggests the Grenache. I agree it’s delicious, and buy a bottle for $50 which will later be found soaked into much of my clothes given my lack of respect for its safety in checked-in luggage. Bloody good Grenache, however.
At Mitchell Wines we enjoy the fruits of three generations of Mitchells, before we’re home for a bath and a snooze, prior to dinner at Watervale Hotel for said ceviche, and wines that match so many marvellous little dishes prepared by chefs from across the world. There is a terrine with cranberry. There’s goat, camel and kangaroo on the menu, all of it from the North. The vegetables come straight from the garden.
There’s a dish that’s effectively bread and butter, but is a big, fresh cob of dodger with a fat, yellow dob of hand-whipped butter. There is goat ragu. The kangaroo is matched with Sangiovese. And the vino just keeps on coming; little nips, effectively, to complement the food. It’s like Moulin Rouge dancing on your tongue.
When I finish with cinnamon surprise and a sticky vino, I am officially done and done. Cooked. Marinated like a kingfish drizzled in Reisling with citrus notes. It is incredible food which has won many hats and other awards, including one from a British magazine which reckons it’s the best pub food in the woooorrrrld.
Golf? When do we play golf? The very next day, friend, at Clare Valley GC – a fine, progressive and volunteer-run bush course that’s a perfect complement for an afternoon of carousing.
Now, you wouldn’t travel 90 minutes to play Clare GC; it’s not a destination golf course like your Barnbougles, your Wickhams, your Seven and Five Mile Beaches. But it is, fact, a fun go-round, with no bunkers, which won’t beat you up, and has a hole the Army could use for parachute practice.
The par-3 7th at Clare Valley is a 123-metre long-drop from an escarpment tee-box, and down what might be a 50m descent. The club pro will tell you it plays 100m. Everyone will play two or three balls just for fun, according to President Matt Butler, and what else should the blessed game offer but that.
After a fine and fun 18 holes with Mr President and gun local, Alex Nichols, I’d have stayed in the friendly clubhouse longer, and then headed back to Pauletts for that “Long Lunch”, the brewery for a cleanser and Watervale for more ceviche and Sangiovese.
Alas, selflessly, for you, dear reader, we’re off through the flatlands of Bumbunga and bound for the coastal townships of Wallaroo and Port Hughes, and a Greg Norman design I could not believe given it's nine holes and public, and on the Yorke Peninsula.
That story next week.
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