Wine country

Amy saw an ad for a bus trip to the wineries in Barossa Valley during “gourmet weekend.” Seemed like a good idea. We bought tickets Saturday morning and were on our way by nine. Several ‘lads’ sat down in the seats in front of us and, after about thirty minutes, it occurred to me that ‘the wine bus’ might not have been such a good idea. The phrase that keyed me into this was “Och, those Brits can’t hold their liquah.” Reflexively (and unfortunately) I looked forward just in time to see the alleged Brit leaned forward over a bucket, looking wistfully at the bottom. It turns out that bus rides to wineries hold an appeal for a wide range of people, but wine connoisseurs are not among them. I’ll spare you the goriest of the details, but suffice it to say that the bus was warm and aromatic by the time we reached Tanunda.

Once there, one of Amy’s colleagues and her family spent the afternoon wandering the wineries with us. There’s nothing that says Australia like wineries, 55 degree weather, and motorcycles.

I journeyed through the Australian wine country via motorbike with a rider who had been in the Barossa Valley all his life and was therefore very knowledgeable about the area. Certain landmarks triggered a memory that he related while gesturing at the countryside. I found this disconcerting, especially when his other hand was signaling a right turn – but I figured we were in this together. He later told me that he was counting on me to balance the bike. He looked a bit disconcerted when I told him that I couldn’t remember whether to lean in to the turns or lean out against the turn and so decided to lean in and then out.

Seppeltsfield ...

... one of the oldest wineries in the area. After a tasting, I became an immediate and enduring fan of Muscat. If you’ve never had it before, Muscat is a cross between Port and alcoholic honey infused with sugar. It’s the kind of drink that makes it easy to forget that your third glass is actually your sixth.

Then to Gibson Wineries, where we had great Shiraz, killer blue cheese, and listened to a very good jazz band. Then a brisk and information filled ride back to the bus.

I hadn’t really visualized the bus trip back. The afternoon bus crowd was noticeably louder and I instantly regretted not drinking more heavily. I didn’t know whether to feel reassured or worried when I heard someone comment that they had “a lot of buckets” at the front. We saw our British friend from the morning. We sat down as far away from him as we could and were immediately patted repeatedly on the heads by completely hammered New Zealanders sitting behind us. They appeared to mistake us for Muppets until we spoke, at which point they were very pleased to be sitting behind Canadians. Amy gave us away by using ‘about’ rather than ‘aboot.’ One of them commented that she “really had to wee” and asked how much longer we had on the bus. I told her it was about an hour but she seemed happier believing her drunken friend who slurred that it was "prolly" twenty minutes. In any event, it wasn’t possible to change her mind.