Opening Times
Mon-Fri, Sun 11am-4pm
Sat 10am-4pm
Open Public Holidays excluding Good Friday, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.
T +61 8 8329 4124
Our Home
The Home of Hardys
A visit to Hardys Tintara is not just about tasting wine, but experiencing the rich history that goes into running a business over 160 years.
The Hardys Tintara winery, on the main street of McLaren Vale, has been at the heart and soul of the region from the very beginning. In 1878 Thomas Hardy transformed an old flour mill into one of the region’s best wine cellars, and with his success, McLaren Vale began to prosper and grow.
Today, we are proud to still be the home of Hardys, and be able to showcase the original winery, as well as combine time-honoured winemaking techniques with the best of today’s technology.
Cellar Door
At Hardys Tintara Cellar Door you can enjoy a range of wines that showcase the best McLaren Vale has to offer. Select from cellar door exclusive alternate varietals, our McLaren Vale range, or indulge in a structured tasting of our Icon Eileen and Thomas Hardy wines, produced from some of the finest fruit resources in Australia, and hand crafted using the time honoured techniques of open fermentation and basket pressing.
Opening hours: Monday - Friday, Sunday 11am - 4pm
Saturday 10am - 4pm
Open some Public Holidays 10am - 4pm excludes Christmas Day, New Year’s Day and Good Friday.
Call us on +61 (08) 8329 4124
Structured Tastings
Hardys Tintara has a number of premium and structured tastings available for visitors who want to treat themselves and try the very best wines we have to offer. These include our Thomas Hardy and Eileen Hardy icon wines, exclusive back vintage Reynella Shiraz and Hardys Rare Fortified wines. Available every day. Book ahead to avoid disappointment.
Book Here
Fleurieu Arthouse
Housed on the historic Hardys Tintara site, the Fleurieu Arthouse is an exciting alchemy of creative talent with a stunning exhibition space, working artist studios, artisan retail shop and interactive workshop space.
Summer Opening Hours Everyday from 10am - 5pm
Winter Opening Hours Fri – Mon 11am – 4pm
Visit Us
Experience it for yourself from our new Winery Viewing Platform, or explore our history in our Fortified Room, wander through our gardens, browse through the Fleurieu Arthouse and make sure you experience our tastings of Icon, Regional and Cellar Door only wines. Make some time to come in and see us, we have plenty to share with you.
Winery Viewing Platform
Winery Viewing Platform —
In what was once the entrance to the Hardys Tintara winery, where horses and carts would back up to unload their precious cargo of grapes, you now have a display of both Hardy family history and a view into our state of the art open fermentation cellar.
Explore the generations of the Hardy family who have worked and contributed to Hardys over the many years. Take a look at a few of the key pieces of winemaking equipment that have been part of the winemaking process. Notice the beautiful wood floor beneath your feet, made of old wine vats, and restored for this very purpose.
Or take in the view of our open fermentation cellar, where all the premium Hardys red wines are made every year from February to May. From plungers, to basket presses, to 5 and 10 tonne fermenters, this is the heart of our working winery.
Fortified Room
Our Fortified Room —
Housed in the heart of the original mill building, our Fortified room is a wonderful celebration of the many delicious styles of fortified wine that have played such an important role in the history of Hardys Wines.
You will see original advertisements from the Hardys Wines archives, as well as new and old fortified wines. Take a look at the beautiful colours of the different fortified wine styles, as they develop and mature over time, or take a closer look at the antique model of a typical brandy still.
Look out for the Solera stack of barrels at the back of the room, which is how Tawny Port is made, or the barrel of sherry that is maturing before your eyes. It is a great opportunity to understand more about these long standing styles and what goes in to making them.
Still House
Our Still House —
We no longer distill at Tintara, but we have retained one of the three original stills to remember times past. Housed in a tall corrugated iron building, standing immediately adjacent to the ironstone Mortlock Mill building dating from 1852, the Still house was built to house three brandy stills.
Inside, you can see the original still, taking up almost the entire height of this space. Built of copper, this still would have contributed to generations of fortified wines, and forms a great link to our rich past of producing these styles of wine.
Gardens
The Gardens —
The lovely gardens at Hardys Tintara include a large lawn area, many trees as well as public access barbecue facilities and tables. Our most distinguished garden feature is the enormous Moreton Bay Fig Tree dominating the western side of the Hardys Tintara gardens, planted in around 1868.
Listed in the National Trust Register of Significant Trees, numbered 17 out of 650, the seedling was handed to the Manager of the Mortlock Mill around 1865 by the Adelaide Botanic Gardens Director of the time, who encouraged their planting, as he considered the Moreton Bay Fig to be the Oak tree of Australia.
Rumoured to be the largest Moreton Bay Fig tree in the Southern hemisphere, this tree is as much a part of Hardys Tintara as the winery itself.