Today we did a wine tasting tour to the Hunter Valley. The Hunter Valley is farther from Sydney than Yarra Valley is from Melbourne, but our driver/tour guide broke the trip up nicely so it was fine. There were 20 of us on our tour today: 3 Japanese women, 2 women from Moscow, a Malaysian mother and son, a young couple from Singapore, two middle-aged couples, one from Napier, New Zealand and one from Eastbourne, England, 2 young women from Philadelphia (a teacher and a nurse), and another young woman (law student) with her mother, currently from Australia, but originally from Sri Lanka. And 3 McKeague's. Quite an interesting bunch of people.
We went to three wineries - the first one was Savannah Estates, where we bought a Verdelho. Verdelho grapes are what Madeira is made from, but here they just make white table wine instead. Next we went to Iron Gate Estates, a boutique winery which grows its own grapes, makes its own wine, and only distributes via the cellar door. There we bought a Sweet Mandala, that we will likely bring home with us. They also made a Sweet Shiraz that is especially good with chocolate - they gave us some chocolate cake to taste with the wine. After that we had lunch at Hunter Valley Gardens, then went to the Smelly Cheese Shop for a little cheese tasting. All this excitement was followed by another tasting at Ernest Hill Wines, another boutique winery (only distributes from cellar door, etc.) but this one wasn't as pretentious as the first one. I really enjoyed our tasting there.
Then we had our drive back to Sydney. Our tour guide is going to be busy this evening with her roller derby team. She was quite entertaining too.
I'm not sure where we'll eat tonight. Last night we went to a Chinese restaurant across the street (we are basically in Chinatown). We were quite entertained by the wait staff: Level 1 wore black suits, white shirt and tie (unless female, then no tie) and had a head set and earpiece. They'd look at home as security staff at the G20 conference. Level 2 wore brocade jacket style tops (women) or brocade vests over a white shirt (men) and still had the head sets/ear pieces to co-ordinate their attack with. Level 3 were kitchen staff who delivered food to the eating floor, and wore aprons, and no ear pieces. Except for 1 woman with the head set and ear piece and a brocade vest as well as the apron - she must have been head of that group. Then there were the poor Level 4 bus boys in red shirts and no communication devices. As well as entertaining us with their wait staff they also served us (and a multitude of others) an excellent Chinese dinner.
We went to three wineries - the first one was Savannah Estates, where we bought a Verdelho. Verdelho grapes are what Madeira is made from, but here they just make white table wine instead. Next we went to Iron Gate Estates, a boutique winery which grows its own grapes, makes its own wine, and only distributes via the cellar door. There we bought a Sweet Mandala, that we will likely bring home with us. They also made a Sweet Shiraz that is especially good with chocolate - they gave us some chocolate cake to taste with the wine. After that we had lunch at Hunter Valley Gardens, then went to the Smelly Cheese Shop for a little cheese tasting. All this excitement was followed by another tasting at Ernest Hill Wines, another boutique winery (only distributes from cellar door, etc.) but this one wasn't as pretentious as the first one. I really enjoyed our tasting there.
Then we had our drive back to Sydney. Our tour guide is going to be busy this evening with her roller derby team. She was quite entertaining too.
I'm not sure where we'll eat tonight. Last night we went to a Chinese restaurant across the street (we are basically in Chinatown). We were quite entertained by the wait staff: Level 1 wore black suits, white shirt and tie (unless female, then no tie) and had a head set and earpiece. They'd look at home as security staff at the G20 conference. Level 2 wore brocade jacket style tops (women) or brocade vests over a white shirt (men) and still had the head sets/ear pieces to co-ordinate their attack with. Level 3 were kitchen staff who delivered food to the eating floor, and wore aprons, and no ear pieces. Except for 1 woman with the head set and ear piece and a brocade vest as well as the apron - she must have been head of that group. Then there were the poor Level 4 bus boys in red shirts and no communication devices. As well as entertaining us with their wait staff they also served us (and a multitude of others) an excellent Chinese dinner.
2 comments:
Was it a big restaurant? That sounds like an awful lot of coordination. Or is it really just silly that they have all that - like at Bootlegger in the Centre at Circle & 8th?
It was an enormous restaurant, and the co-ordination was necessary. The restaurant was efficient and had great food and fed many, many people.
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