VERDANT AUSSIE VALLEY HOME TO RENOWNED WINE REGION.

Byline: Gary A. Warner Orange County Register

The cult of Bacchus recognizes three great wine regions in all the world:

France, with its many round, bold reds.

Italy's classic Chiantis and Barolos.

Northern California, with its upstart Cabernets and Merlots.

So oenophiles (translation: wine snobs) let out a collective gasp when the respected Wine Spectator magazine recently opined that the best wine in the world came from none of these hallowed lands.

To find the home of the top-ranked 1990 Penfolds Grange Shiraz, wine lovers would have to trek to a field of 100-year-old vines in the Barossa Valley, in the far south of Australia.

Australia? The land of kangaroos, crocodiles and ``G'day mate''? Where an afternoon apertif means a can of Fosters Lager in the back of a Land Rover?

The world has discovered what serious wine lovers have known for several years: Australia has cultivated world-class vineyards rivaling the famed fields of Burgundy, Tuscany and Napa.

``It seems that each time we try the latest releases from Down Under, they are even higher in quality and more deserving of attention,'' wrote Wine Spectator editor Marvin R. Shanken.

In places such as the Hunter Valley, Clare Valley, Eden Valley, McLaren Vale, and Connawarra, hearty reds - particularly the fabled Shiraz - are grown in great soil under a steady warm sun.

But Australian wine reaches its pinnacle in the Barossa Valley, an Edenic stretch of hills and vines an hour north of Adelaide in the state of South Australia.

It is a compact paradise - just 2 miles wide in some points and only 20 miles long. But its vineyards are prolific. Each year, 400 growers pick 55,000 tons of grapes that are sold to the 45 wineries scattered among the valley's narrow roadways.

With its farmhouse restaurants, cellar-door wine-tasting rooms, wine-cask-making shops and bucolic town squares, the Barossa Valley looks like what Napa Valley must have been like before the tourist hordes overran it years ago.

The Barossa Valley reflects generations of immigration. English farmhouses and German churches stand side-by-side on palm-fringed streets.

Englishman George Fife Angas invited Lutherans fleeing religious persecution in Silesia and Prussia to settle on his lands in 1842.

The Germans brought their winemaking prowess with them, coupling it with a soil more like that of Italy or southern France than their native land. The result is dense, full-bodied red wines and sweet Ports and Muscats.

Betheny and Tanunda are the heart of Barossa Valley's ``little Germany,'' a pair of villages evocative of Hamburg or Bremen, with sturdy stone public buildings, Lutheran churches and chalet-style

In Nuriootpa, visitors can stop by the Kegel Club to watch the medievel German bowling game mentioned in the writings of Martin Luther. Many of the villages have oompah bands and liedertafel - German singing clubs.

There are dozens of places to try Barossa Valley wines, from tiny family-run shops to huge corporate operations covering hundreds of acres.

The undisputed king of the valley is Penfolds, which opened its doors in the valley in 1921. Its winery and tasting room in Nuriootpa look more like a factory than the vine-draped stone buildings of Napa and Bordeaux.

But the product made inside is spectacular - if you could find a bottle of 1990 Penfolds Grange, it would sell for upwards of $250 - a powerful signature Shiraz and dozens of lesser, but less expensive, cousins.

Many visitors come to the Barossa Valley as a day trip from Adelaide. If time is tight, visit the best (Penfolds), the prettiest (Rockford) and the oldest (Yalumba).

Great wines beget good eating and the valley is now famous for its gourmet restaurants. On the porch of 1918 Bistro in Tanunda, diners graze on peppered venison, the perfect spicy meat dish to go with the local Shiraz. Or stop in at the nearby Apex Bakery for a brezel, a crunchy German pastry cooked in a wood-fired oven.

Beyond eating and drinking, the other great attraction of the valley is the Keg Factory, a throwback to the days when wine kegs were made slowly by craftsmen using tools handed down from their grandfathers. The barrels are made of French or American oak. It takes seven hours to make one small barrel by hand. The factory turns out 30 per week.

``We take pride in our trade, in doing things the right way,'' said Glen Schulz, who operates the factory. There are three varieties of kegs: rounds, uprights and ovals.

``In the old days, the smugglers didn't want to have the barrels rolling around making a lot of noise when they put into port, so they hit upon the idea of an oval barrel - it doesn't roll very far,'' said barrelmaker Alex Thompson. The barrel warehouse sells old barrels that have been crafted into wine racks, chairs and other bar furniture.

For better or worse, the worldwide craze over the Penfolds Grange Shiraz means that the world has found the Barossa Valley.

``Very few people will have a chance to actually drink the Penfolds Grange,'' said Garrie, the Penfolds spokesman. ``But all the exposure it has received will open people up to the idea of high-quality Australian wine, and to the beautiful, sunlit, clean place where it was born.''

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Photo

Photo: In Australia's Barossa Valley, 400 growers harvest the grapes that go into making the region's famed Shiraz and other varieties offered by more than 40 wineries.

Michael Goulding/Orange County Register