5 Camp Meal and Wine Pairings to Die For

We love wine. And in our humble opinion, it always tastes best huddled around a campfire, the grinning faces of your mates brightened by the light of the flames, while a warm and hearty meal heats up your lap as you chow down after a long day of exploring. Bellissimo! 

Some of our favourite wines to fill our camp cups, come from a little known winery in South Australia, Banrock Station.

What is Banrock Station?

Banrock Station is a gorgeous winery, cellar door, and Ramsay Wetlands near the Murray River in South Australia, but the folk here are so much more than just winemakers.

The Banrock crew are big on conservation and sustainability and their passion for the environment extends to their wines and the wetlands that adjoin the cellar door.

Banrock Station is in the process of turning its entire wine range vegan (!!!) and is partnering with Landcare Australia to plant 100,000 native plants and shrubs around the country annually. Plus their wines are delicious and pair perfectly with a camp meal and a night under the stars.

1. Egg-in-the-hole Burger & Banrock Station Cabernet Merlot

A hearty meal needs a full-bodied and bold wine to top it off, and this mouth-watering egg-in-the-hole beef burger is begging to be paired with Banrock Station’s Cabernet Merlot.

This pairing is best saved for when you’re setting up basecamp in a sweet spot for a few nights, where you can work on creating a nice, hot bed of coals and have an ice-cold esky to store your mince and eggs.

Treat your mates to this melt-in-their-mouth burger and surprise them with a glass of Banrock’s well-balanced cabernet merlot, with hints of vanilla pod and dark cherry, yum yum!

2. Freshly Caught Campfire Fish & Banrock Station Sauvignon Blanc

Fish and white wine go together like long weekends and sleep-ins. And there’s no better combo of the two than a fish you’ve caught yourself and a glass of Banrock Station’s Sauvignon Blanc *chefs kiss*. 

Available by the bottle or the cask, this light and dry sauvignon blanc, with flavours of lime, passionfruit, and gooseberry, is the ideal drop to couple with that massive jewfish you casually reeled in on your lazy Saturday arvo by the water.

Go full Bear Grylls and construct your own stand alone grill out of sticks to cook your freshly cooked barra over the flames.

3. Indian Style Lentils & Banrock Station Shiraz Cabernet Cask Wine

More often than not, adventure and glass do not mix; it’s heavy, incredibly accident-prone and the shape of a wine bottle isn’t suited to hiking pack tetris.

So on your next overnight or multi-day trip, leave the wine bottle behind and kick it old school with a wine cask instead. A bunch of Banrock’s vegan wines are available in a handy 2L cask, and the best part is, once the wine’s gone, so is the weight! So drink up and make the return trip a few kilos lighter! 

Banrock Station’s Shiraz Cabernet will warm you up inside just like these Indian style lentils. This full-bodied and semi-sweet blend goes down a treat with the crisp chapati and delicious assortment of spices in this curry. 

You can adapt this moreish dhal recipe to suit your cooking set up, whether you use a lightweight hiking stove or have a full camp kitchen at your disposal, so you can enjoy it on all sorts of adventures. 

Another plus side to cask wine is the fact that it has a significantly lower carbon footprint than glass bottles. As it’s a lighter material, energy is saved in the supply chain during the processing and transport of cask wine. 

Glass bottles also take a larger amount of energy to produce, and as cask wine is often purchased in a higher volume, the per litre emissions are sizably lower than that of a standard 750ml bottle. So many reasons to say yes to a cask!

4. Pad Thai & Banrock Station White Shiraz Rosé

Is there anyone who doesn’t love pad thai? Surely not. Who’da thunk you could even cook pad thai while you’re on the trail? 

This simple but exquisite (and quick!) pad thai recipe is literally made for lightweight adventures and is taken to a whole new level when coupled with a camp cup of Banrock Station’s White Shiraz Rosé. 

With creamy and berry flavours, and lying in that ‘goldilocks’ zone between dry and sweet, this rosé beautifully balances out the spice and heat of that flavour-filled pad thai (assuming you load yours up with chilli too). 

Banrock’s Rosé is available in a cask too, so you can easily squish and squeeze it into your pack.

5. Grilled Chocolate Bananas & Banrock Station Passionfruit and Elderflower Fruit Spritz

There’s nothing more delicious you can cook on a campfire than a grilled chocolate banana. It’s so good, sometimes we don’t even wait for a camping trip to throw one on the coals.

Dessert is always cause for a celebration, so pairing this sweet treat with a sparkling wine simply makes sense. 

Banrock Station’s Passionfruit and Elderflower Fruit Spritz is as scrumptious as it sounds. It’s sweet and light and perfectly balances out this decadent chocolate dessert.

You could save this combo for a special occasion, but isn’t every night at the million star hotel a night to remember? Here’s cheers to that. 

Photo by Drew Farewell

This is just the beginning of Banrock Station’s wine range and story.

A visit to Banrock Station is so much more than just a wine tasting and delicious meal; it’s a chance to tour through the unique and world-class adjoining wetlands the crew at Banrock are committed to protecting. 

Banrock Station Wines are available at major liquor retailers nationwide, so you’ll be able to pick up a glass or cask on the way to your next adventure. 

Feature photo by Drew Farewell