Walking Donkey Wine Tours

The pace is slow and the ambience is irrefutably bucolic as you learn and hear about the different soil types and growing aspects from a seasoned winemaking veteran. You’ll bump into fellow winemakers and take in all sorts of flora and fauna — such as kangaroos thundering their way through neighbouring paddocks — with perfectly placed stops to sample a glass or two from the vines you’ve been walking among.

The walking part of the tour ended at Jodie’s home. Agatha and Winsome reluctantly returned to their yard while the 10 guests eagerly sat for lunch. We were 10 virtual strangers from different parts of Australia. We came together via a mutual interest in wine and a desire to take a tour with a difference. We not only learned so much about viticulture, winemaking, and donkeys in Ethiopia, but as Jodie served a delicious lunch with wine, we learned so much about each other. I had never laughed so much as the wine, and humorous personal stories flowed bringing the end to a very enlightening day.

Agatha has been a part of the Journey Home Wines family since she was just nine months old. Sweet and thoughtful, she has become a valued and loved member of the team, always making new friends and happily showing them through the vineyards. As a donkey, however, Agatha is more partial to new friends when they come bearing gifts in the form of carrots. Along with her good friend and fellow donkey, Winsome, the pair are the main attraction at the McLaren Vale winery, one of the only places in South Australia where you can explore the vineyards by way of donkey.

And in perhaps the festival’s most unexpected event, Journey Home Wines presents an escorted tour of vineyards and cellar doors with viticulturalist and small-batch winemaker Jodie Armstrong. She’ll be joined by – wait for it – two donkeys, Agatha and Winsome.

McLaren Vale-based winemaker and viticulturist Jodie Armstrong prefers not to charge through life in a straight line. Instead, she meanders with her beloved donkeys by her side. Armstrong is on a mission to help others to do the same with her Walking Donkey Wine Tours. Participants feed donkeys Agatha and Winsome before leading them past vineyards and through evocative Blewitt Springs landscape. There’s wine, of course, including Armstrong’s Journey Home drops, and a long lunch to wrap things up. The pace is slow and the experience mindful. People talk about how much they enjoyed the food, but the thing that really moves them is how good they feel after being out in nature with the donkeys.

Winsome is trying to eat her own basket, while Agatha has come to a halt and is snacking on some particular juicy grass. No designated driver is required for this particular tour. A relatively new offering, the Walking Donkey Wine Tour is the brainchild of winemaker Jodie Armstrong of Journey Home Wines. She's imported the straw saddle baskets from Greece and packs them on the girls with wine and a picnic, for an on-foot tour that offers an alternate vista, insider wine knowledge and lots of donkey cuddles.