“I'm a firm believer that you shouldn't eat seafood unless you can see the sea,” Jay Marinis says as he lifts a plump, creamy oyster, “even if this is a bit of a cheat.”

We’re on the roomy wraparound balcony of The Scenic Hotel, gazing down past the steep slopes of the Mount Lofty Ranges to the suburbs of Adelaide and the glittering Gulf St Vincent beyond.

Marinis is a director at this appropriately titled establishment in the town of Norton Summit. It’s a cruisy 20-minute drive from Adelaide’s CBD, a journey we made in the sporty, all-electric EQA from Mercedes-EQ. The distance is barely enough to make a dent in the vehicle’s 400-km range, but it certainly feels as though we’ve entered another world thanks to the abundant greenery, fresh air and locals who are more than happy to take things slowly.

The Scenic: the new local

Standing at the gateway to the region, The Scenic is a great place to get acquainted with the locals cementing the Adelaide Hills as a hotspot for innovative, sustainable food and wine, or at least the fruits of their labour.
Helmed by a chef who recently returned from a stint at some of London’s trendiest wine bars, The Scenic places pub classics alongside more creative fare and sources local produce as much as possible. 

Vegetables are pulled from the biodynamic plot at Ngeringa, part of the former Jurlique herb farm in nearby Mount Barker, and organic sourdough is baked down the road at Brid (named for the Kiwi owner’s pronunciation of “bread” and well worth a visit). Even the eye-catching steak tartare, served atop a mound of ruffled chips in a Smith’s packet, uses retired milkers from nearby dairy farms.

The local focus continues with a wine list that heroes small-scale producers from around the region. It’s on the 10-minute drive to visit one such winemaker that the proximity of this talent pool becomes abundantly clear. As the EQA glides silently around the bends of Lobethal Road, Marinis points out vineyards owned by some of the who’s who of natural and minimal-intervention wine in this part of the world: Lucy Margaux Wines, Basket Range and BK Wines.

Scintilla: living wine

Natural wine is a famously difficult category to define, which is why Scintilla founder James Madden prefers a different label. By following a “zero/zero” approach where nothing is added or removed from the fermenting wine, Madden preserves the microorganisms living on the fruit and this creates a product that changes dramatically even after it’s bottled – hence the term “living wine”. It’s an approach that has served him well across the range: from a bright, bubbly pet nat [sparkling wine] to nutty, oxidative numbers in the style of the Jura, Madden has developed a reputation for making some of the most exciting natural wines in the country.

And because living wine has to come from a living vineyard, Madden takes great pride in the care he lavishes on the land. While more venerable wine regions talk about the impressive lineage of winemakers, the focus here is firmly on future generations.

“This is an absolute wonderland,” says Madden gesturing around his 30-acre property in the Basket Range, where sustainable, small-scale agriculture exists in harmony with natural beauty. “When I’m finished here, I want to hand it to someone else in even better condition ... That’s the essence of regenerative farming.”

Blue fairy wrens hop playfully around fruit trees covered in delicate white blossoms as magpies and rosellas call out from patches of dense bush. A nearby creek is fed by a seasonal waterfall that tumbles down the steep hills shielding this secluded valley from the outside world.

It’s a long way from the Perth restaurant where Madden was first introduced to minimal intervention wine. Several pioneering Adelaide Hills makers – including Anton Von Klopper from Lucy Margaux – were conducting a tasting and “they expressed this huge amount of excitement and vitality and pure joy about what they were doing,” he recalls.

He was instantly hooked and within the year had headed east to work a harvest with Von Klopper. A decade later, the two are neighbours – Madden can see Von Klopper’s front door from his kitchen.

The region’s steep hills and valleys, while ideally suited to producing a diverse range of grape varieties thanks to its myriad microclimates, are also primed for putting the EQA’s powerful electric motor through its paces. As we leave the private valley, Marinis opens the sunroof and accelerates effortlessly up a steep hill before tapping the regenerative braking that uses the vehicle’s kinetic energy to charge the battery on the way down. This compact SUV might seem bred for city driving, but it’s equally at home in the hills.

The Summertown Aristologist: a community meeting place

The Adelaide Hills is a region that wears its seasons elegantly, where fiery autumn foliage gives way to ethereal winter mists before a forest of greenery erupts into life after spring rains. It’s a place where being connected to nature is the default setting, and that’s certainly the case at our next stop.

The Summertown Aristologist operates on the philosophy that the small team of staff should grow as much of their own produce as possible for the weekly service of dinner Friday to Sunday and lunch on Saturday and Sunday. The chefs harvest vegetables and herbs from the two-and-a-half-acre farm and use this crop to develop a menu for each week.
Modest descriptions such as “cabbage, nettle” and “duck, quandong, greens” belie thoughtful, elegantly plated dishes that evolve over the course of each weekend in line with the restaurant’s zero-waste policy.

Fruit and vegetables are fermented, pickled and turned into sauces or syrups to take advantage of seasonal abundance, and many locals bring the harvest from their own gardens to swap for store credit. It’s the very essence of what the three founders — von Klopper, along with fellow winemakers Jasper Button and Aaron Fenwick – envisaged when they started the place. “They wanted to reflect the relationship that food plays within the community by bringing people together,” explains restaurant manager Sarah Feehan.

The neighbouring cellar door adds wine into the equation, too. Button’s Commune of Buttons, Fenwick’s Chateau Comme Ci Comme Ca and von Klopper’s Lucy Margaux all feature prominently on the wine list, but the trio have left plenty of room for other local producers too small to have their own cellar doors.

The Aristologist is the kind of place where curious drinkers tasting natural wine for the first time might find themselves sitting next to winemakers responsible for some of the most sought-after drops in the country. “They all stop in and say hello,” says Feehan. “That gives us a real connection with the wine that we're pouring and with the food that we're growing.”

“Once you drink natural wine, you can understand that it's not just about the drink,” adds Marinis, who also runs events pairing local wines with discussions on topics including soil fertility and indigenous land rights.

In the Adelaide Hills, he’s found a group of people who understand that wine can fuel good times and inspire a closer connection to the land, but he recognises that’s just one piece of a larger puzzle. “This is a pretty magical community,” he says, “the people that are inspired by this place are naturally open to different experiences that connect you to culture, connect you to land and the spirit of this place.”

Organic Market and Cafe
Stirling’s Organic Market and Cafe has been a fixture on South Australia’s organic food scene since 1988. Stock up on biodynamic fruit, vegetables and foods along with a wide range of locally made pantry items.
5 Druid Avenue, Stirling
Open everyday, 8.30am – 5.30pm (cafe closes at 5pm).

Brid
176 Piccadilly Rd, Piccadilly
Open Friday 7.30am – 2pm, Saturday 8am – 2pm and Sunday 9am – 2pm.

Summertown Aristologist
1097 Greenhill Road, Summertown
Restaurant open Friday 5pm – 8.30pm and Saturday to Sunday noon – 8.30pm. Cellar door open Friday 3pm – 7pm and Saturday to Sunday noon – 4pm.

Lost in a Forest
A converted church operating as a wood-fired pizza and wine lounge, co-founded by yet another natural wine pioneer, Taras Ochota. Pizza toppings are off-beat combinations of local, seasonal produce, and the wine list is a showcase of Ochota Barrels and neighbouring Basket Range wines.
1203 Greenhill Road, Uraidla
Open Thursday and Friday for sittings from 5pm, 6.30pm and 8pm. Saturday and Sunday from noon onwards.

The Scenic Hotel
Old Norton Summit Road, Norton Summit
Open Wednesday 4pm – 8pm, Thursday to Saturday noon – 8pm and Sunday noon – 7pm. Check the website for kitchen opening times.

Ngeringa
107 Williams Road, Mount Barker Summit
Ngeringa hosts regular events and wine tastings at the farm, or you can visit the cellar door by appointment only. Check the website for details.

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By Alexis Buxton-Collins