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A good winery visit is only partly about the wine. There’s the view, the lunch and the patch of lawn that starts looking particularly fun for rolling down after your third glass. Australians clearly have some thoughts on the matter. More than 8,000 people cast votes in the 2027 Halliday Wine Companion People’s Choice Award, which names the country’s favourite winery experience.
McLaren Vale’s Down The Rabbit Hole winery took out the 2027 People’s Choice Award, with voters particularly taken with its “incredible social atmosphere”, thoughtful service, scenic views and value for money – stuff that has less to do with what’s in the glass than how fun it feels to keep filling it up.
Unlike the main Halliday Wine Companion Awards, where experts blind taste wines and concern themselves with the serious business of things like vintages, the People’s Choice Award is about the whole kit and caboodle – the food, the setting, the view – you get the idea.
Down the Rabbit Hole has this particular formula figured out. Founded by husband-and-wife team Domenic and Elise Palumbo, the winery produces small-batch wines from organic and biodynamic vineyards. There are sprawling lawns, woodfired pizzas, cheeseboards, live music and a converted double-decker bus, plus Fiore, its in-house restaurant serving a seasonal Italian set menu. You could taste a few wines and be on your way, but that would require leaving.
South Australia absolutely cleaned up (shock!), claiming seven of the ten spots. Barossa Valley’s Elderton Wines came second, followed by Cofield Wines in Victoria’s Rutherglen. Brokenwood Wines in the Hunter Valley took fourth, while McLaren Vale’s Maxwell Wines rounded out the top five.
Australia’s 10 favourite wineries, according to the Halliday Wine Companion People’s Choice Awards:
- Down the Rabbit Hole Wines, McLaren Vale, SA
- Elderton, Barossa Valley, SA
- Cofield Wines, Rutherglen, VIC
- Brokenwood, Hunter Valley, NSW
- Maxwell Wines, McLaren Vale, SA
- Laughing Jack, Barossa Valley, SA
- Chateau Tanunda, Barossa Valley, SA
- Thicker than Water, McLaren Vale, SA
- Audrey Wilkinson, Hunter Valley, NSW
- Gibson, Barossa Valley, SA