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Archive for February, 2015

ya wanna try them all? ;)

I am finally not working every minute so hope to post a little more often

I have spent this week in a haze of nostalgia hankering for the land of Oz.  It’s the Vancouver Wine Festival, one of the world’s best.  I have been going for a very long time – since the Aussies taught me about wine and I came back to Canada with all this wine knowledge and a sophisticated palate.  Back in those days, wine was mostly the province of men over 50.  I searched the yellow pages and found a wine society I could join only to discover there was only one other person in the room who looked about my age – she was there with her mother.  Vanessa became a great friend and I owe a lot of my social life in my 30s to that chance encounter.

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But this is about Australian wine!  I was especially moved because it was the birthday of my best friend from my Sydney days just last week so Australia was already on my mind.  Each year the Vancouver International Wine Festival has a feature country and this year it is Australia.  So I had lots of opportunities to taste wine and chat with people with genuine Aussie accents.  The first winery I hit last night was Longview.  Mark was going to explain where Adelaide Hills was but I said, “I’ve been there.  That’s why I am here”.

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For those who don’t know Adelaide Hills, it is a coolish climate region in South Australia near Adelaide.  Australia is the land of sunshine so getting the evening temperature to 9 degrees is not easy.  It’s what makes the wines of Adelaide Hills a little more special.  They taste less “Australian” and more “European”.  I discovered Adelaide Hills as a by-product of my friendship with Elizabeth.  I always promised I would come back for her wedding but appreciated that is not the ideal time to spend time with friends so I came early and told her I would disappear for 5 days a little ahead of the wedding so she wouldn’t feel responsible for entertaining me and take myself on a wine tour of South Australia.

I hired some lovely gentleman off the internet (before doing this was common) who had grown up in the Barossa.  Trevor squired me around South Australia and treated me like I was his daughter.  I have the mindset of an engineer so naturally I arrived with a gigantic list of all the wineries I wanted to visit.  He is very gracious so did not tell me I was crazy… We devised a plan.  I would learn to spit and we would try to do seven or eight wineries a day.  Some would be from my list and some would be his suggestions.

http://www.auburntours.com.au/auburntours.htm

We would spend two days in the Barossa Valley, one day in the Clare Valley, a day in Adelaide Hills and a day in McLaren Vale.  Five of the best days of my life.  Drinking the different regions side by side allowed me to really see the differences and decide what I wanted to buy from which region.  Since I live in Canada where wine has a sin tax that exceeds gasoline (seriously, these are plants – they are GOOD for the planet 😉 it was challenging to drink and not buy.  I had already quizzed Elizabeth and her soon to be husband in Sydney so decided their wedding present would be a case of wine – different types so they could be opened at different times in their marriage.  Trevor had lots of contacts at the wineries so it was organized it could be a mixed case and would be shipped from the winery where bottle 12 was purchased.

That was Peter Lehmann.  I have quite a few wonderful Australian winery experiences but I have a special place in my heart for Peter Lehmann – and Trevor.  When we arrived, not only did I try a bunch of different wines but each was paired with a snack.  I really wished I could have shared it with someone.  I was so wowed by the experience that I bought more than one wine there and finished the case.

http://peterlehmannwines.com/

If you would like to learn more about wine, there is no better place to go than Australia.  As I was informed last night, you don’t talk about “terroir” 🙂  You will taste it but keep that word to yourself.  I have spent a lot of time this week gushing to Australian winemakers or marketing reps and recounting some of my winery experiences.

a great place to drink aussie wine :)

a great place to drink aussie wine 🙂

Not all aspects of aging are welcome but sometimes being old works in your favour.  I was extremely fortunate to meet an Aussie in Toronto who was determined to teach me about wine.  Then I moved to Sydney with him.  I went to people’s houses where they had BOXES of wine!  They went to the Hunter Valley and stocked up as they tasted the wines at the actual wineries.  In the early 90s it was like being Alice in wine Wonderland.

There was no Yellow Tail.  Monty Python was still making fun of Australian wine.  Mostly it was just drunk by the locals.  And the locals drank wine out of 2L boxes from Riverina (which was very drinkable).  I caught a lot of grief for my extravagance.  I was willing to pay $10 for 750 ml of wine when I could get 2L for $6 – what was I thinking? 😉

As a novice, it was a transcendental experience.  The Aussies are the most unpretentious people I have met so you just rocked up to the winery and they said, “ya wanna try them all”?  In those days, there was no marketing.  It’s a wonderful place to grow grapes so most wineries did a bunch of different varietals.  There was a Riesling, a Gewurtztraminer, a Sauvignon (no blanc), a Semillon, a Chardonnay, a Merlot, a CabSav, a Shiraz and possibly even a Port.  You learned the difference between varietals by trying them all!

The Chardonnays were really oaky and I couldn’t drink the Shiraz – I felt like I was chewing wood instead of drinking wine.  I was a newbie wine drinker.  Riesling and Gewurtztraminer were just my speed.  It was how I discovered Gewurtztraminer – it took me ages to be able to pronounce it like a German instead of an Australian 🙂  I have so many memories of hanging out in bottle shops, drinking wine I purchased in restaurants and finding hidden gems in obscure wine shops (buying a ten year old Cabernet in a bottle shop at Circular Quay and hoping it was still OK – it was magnificent!)

My interest in Australian wine scored points with my boss who was a connoisseur.  And the Aussies like to drink 😉  It was a very freewheeling place back then at least.  I didn’t go back to the office to try to work after the News Corp audit completion LUNCH but it was incredible.  Wonderful Aussie produce paired with (I think) five different wines… I still remember the Petaluma white, one of his personal favourites.

I also remember when Grange was $64 a bottle.  I never got to drink it!  I bought it for my Australian boyfriend for his birthday.  When Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc costs $12, $64 is an astonishing amount.  Of course, it needs to be aged and our relationship didn’t last that long.  In 2000, Elizabeth and I searched Sydney trying to find a bottle of Grange so I could try it… without success, even though it cost over $300 a bottle by then.  I finally scored some by random accident in Canada where I think I paid just over $200.  I know it was a bargain!  I drank it with my friend Iain who has spent time in Australia for work and could appreciate the significance of drinking a bottle of aged Grange… we decided it wasn’t that great.  I mean, it was great… but not $200 great… so I would encourage you to try something else.

There is a cornucopia of wonderful wine from the land of Oz.  DO try to go there and drink it with the locals.  I’m not even sure if I would be drinking wine if it wasn’t for the Aussies.  They certainly made my virgin wine drinking experiences an absolute delight.  And they taught me how to introduce others to wine.  Start with Riesling, not Cabernet Sauvignon.

So, a shout out to Aussie winemakers and all the people with whom I have shared the pleasures of Aussie wines 😉

 

 

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eating & drinking - well, travel stories

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jealous of Geneva?

still lacking in free time but I am going to try and write about some of my past travels before I get on the next plane… four new adventures already scheduled for 2015 so there will be new stories 🙂

Geneva is a gorgeous place and water plays a major role in its beauty.  But it’s kind of sterile and apparently it’s full of dictators, drug lords and arms dealers who have cut a sweet deal on taxes with the Swiss government so, Dubrovnik, there is no need to be jealous.  You don’t need to recreate Lake Geneva in the squares of the Old Town.

It was my final day in Dubrovnik.  It all started innocently enough.  I had my penultimate delicious multi-course breakfast washed down with delicious Croatian sparkling wine as light danced on the walls of the Old Town in the distance.  As I walked toward the Old Town, there were little sprinkles of rain.  But I live in Vancouver so it wasn’t even umbrella worthy.  I was looking forward to shopping in the outdoor markets and taking home as much local handicraft as I could squeeze in my suitcase.

But I had bought the attractions pass at my first museum and needed to knock off a few more to get my monies worth.  By the time I got to the Rector’s Palace, it was definitely raining.  I’d just pop indoors for an hour or so and come back out to sunshine… Not exactly… I thought I had seen violent rain in Singapore.  Now I understood why everyone was so excited when I arrived that the rain had stopped.  I gather it is unusual so you SHOULD go to Dubrovnik in September.

not your typical visit to the rectors palace

not your typical visit to the rectors palace

And even if it rains, it will be fascinating.  Most of the Rector’s Palace is indoors and the rain was no problem but there is also a courtyard.  The pillars seemed to be designed to perfectly channel the downpour into the center of the courtyard.  There were three people with large brooms sweeping the rain to the drains so the tourists didn’t have to swim to get through the courtyard.  A lot of us were taking pictures – it was an extra attraction 🙂

http://www.dubrovnikcity.com/dubrovnik/attractions/rectors_palace.htm

It was a little wet in the Rector’s Palace but I didn’t realize how sheltered I had been until I exited.  An umbrella wasn’t a lot of help.  I expect this is why they recommend not travelling to tropical places during the wet season.  What had been quaint medieval cobblestones the day before was now a shallow lake.  Most people had their pants rolled up and their shoes in their hands.  Groups of tourists were huddled under awnings.  It was quite the site but it was raining too hard for me to take a photo.

There are steep, narrow side streets off the main thoroughfares and the water was gushing toward the square at such a ferocious speed that it looked like Iguazu, a series of mini waterfalls.  I had thought I was smart and would just tough it out instead of trying to pack into an already overcrowded awning shelter so waded my way through the waterfall in search of the War Photo Museum.  Obviously, the War Photo people were smarter than me and the museum was closed.  I realized that opening the door might cause a rush of water into the building so it may be a challenge to find refuge until the rain abated.

I got lucky and found refuge in D’vino, a wonderful wine bar I had already discovered.  Croatian wine is delicious and undiscovered so it was far more than refuge from the rain.  I even met a fellow solo traveller from Melbourne.  She had even been in Russia, a country that is still on the list.  She proved Aussies are intrepid travellers and that Dubrovnik is far from everything else in Croatia.  She was doing a day trip from Split – at least eight hours of travel.  She definitely wasn’t going to see the Dubrovnik I fell in love with but it would be a story.

http://www.dvino.net/

The rain eventually abated and even stopped at times so I was able to do more than sip Croatian wine and chat with strangers.  The War Photo Museum allowed me in and it was a really poignant experience.

It is the intent of War Photo Limited to educate the public in the field of war photography, to expose the myth of war and the intoxication of war, to let people see war as it is, raw, venal, frightening, by focusing on how war inflicts injustices on innocents and combatants alike. 

http://www.warphotoltd.com/

When it stopped raining for a little while at least, I indulged in my obsession with ice cream.  Dubrovnik is crawling with places to satisfy your cravings but my earlier samplings had just been OK.  I am sure I wrote the name down but I can’t find it.  I apologize.  If you enter from the Ploce Gate, walk almost to the end of the main street and look for the line 🙂

Excelsior Hotel is a cornucopia of delights and there is no requirement to leave so it was tempting to not risk more rain that night but it was my final evening in Dubrovnik and I wanted to experience as much as I could.  Started at La Bodega for a simple dinner.  Then wandered the romantic flood-lit streets able to wear shoes again.  I happened upon a good jazz band playing in the street so decided to sit and order a glass of wine and soak up the atmosphere.  Dubrovnik is a small town 🙂  Ryan and Peter – the Scots from the previous day’s sailing adventures – happened to walk by so they joined me before heading to a casino.

Was trying to see if I could stay awake long enough to check out a nightclub called Revelin that I kept seeing advertised.  Of course, it didn’t open until midnight and

worth staying awake

worth staying awake

the real action would take place at 3am.  But it was my last night.  You definitely need to stay up late but it is quite the scene and in an old stone tower.  It’s the new eastern Europe giving Amsterdam and Berlin a run for their money.

Culture Club Revelin Dubrovnik

I go to nightclubs to dance but I realize lots of people go for other reasons and there is generally some entertainment in addition to the dancing and people watching.  That night it came courtesy of Boris.  Like Patrick from Ireland, how can you not talk to Boris from Croatia?  I do love the confidence of young men who think they can teach me stuff.  A reverse Mrs Robinson 😉  I really doubt it but the conversations are entertaining.

Boris was too alpha male for me though.  He was gorgeous, had an Ivy League education and spoke excellent English.  I doubt women say “no” to him very often.  He walked me half way to my hotel before I convinced him he should just go back to the nightclub and find some boring young girl.  But it was flattering 🙂  I think the highlight though was when some Australian guy stopped us looking for pen and paper to get some girl’s number.  I do all the technologies so could help him out.  Hopefully he got a date.

On planetm, life is never dull 😉

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