The Adelaide Hills built its first fortune on apples. We trace the orchard heritage that still shapes the region, from pick-your-own to proper dry cider.
An orchard region
Long before the Adelaide Hills was famous for cool-climate wine, it was famous for fruit. The cool, high country around Lenswood, Lobethal and the upper valleys proved ideal for apples and pears, and for much of the twentieth century the Hills supplied the state — and beyond — from its orchards.
The legacy on the slopes
That heritage is still written across the landscape. Lenswood, at more than 500 metres, remains serious orchard country, its slopes a patchwork of fruit trees and, increasingly, vines. Old coldstores — the buildings that once kept apples through the year — have found new life, including as cellar doors.
Cider's revival
The most delicious expression of that legacy is the new wave of cider. A generation of makers is pressing local fruit into crisp, dry, food-friendly ciders a world away from the sweet supermarket stuff — barrel-aged, perry, single-orchard. It's the orchard heritage poured into a glass.
Tasting the harvest
In autumn you can pick your own at farm gates, buy direct from roadside stalls, and taste cider flights at the source. It's a quieter, sweeter side of the Hills — and a reminder that this region was a food bowl long before it was a wine list.
