With Margaret River..no seriously! Everything about MR was amazing, weather (hot and sunny during the day/cool at night), beaches, wine, food…all my favorite things in one place. My one complaint is that I wish we had more time to include some sporty activities into the itinerary. Needless to say, we drank our way through the vacation and I managed to spend and exorbitant amount of money on wine…there is really no need to purchase 15 bottles, drink 7 there, came home with 6 in my bag and am awaiting a case to be delivered within the next couple of days which includes a $70 bottle of dessert wine (really necessary???). It was hard not to get caught up in the whole experience. I will say that I have done wine tasting in Napa and Italy and this was my favorite experience.
So the trip went something like this. We arrived into Perth at 2:00am on Wednesday and drove the 3.5 hours to Prevalley where we had rented a house for the four days. The drive was a bit nerve racking as the roads were so dark and we were warned about rambunctious kangaroos hopping across the roads. We, thankfully, did not have a “run in” with any ‘roos however a very large bat met his demise on the windshield of our car. That was pretty gross and the “SPLAT” remained on our windshield for the rest of the weekend. We arrived at the house around 6:00am. We all headed to bed and woke ready to start exploring!
The house was cute and a 5 minute walk to the beach so we got our bathing suits on and headed down. The beach was beautiful and the ocean even more breathtaking. I am saying this right now…Australia has the most beautiful beaches I have ever been to. Everyone always raves about the beaches in Phuket…not even close!! We sat on the beach, watched (the huge) waves and surfers for the whole morning. It was great. By the time 1:00pm came around we were ready to get our wine on so we hopped in the car and headed to the first winery of the trip Cape Mentelle. * I won’t go into detail about the winerys but have outlined my favorite wines at the bottom of the entry.
That evening we went to the grocery store and had a BBQ for dinner. We sat on our terrace and watched the sunset. It was really beautiful. We sat, ate a wonderful meal and started drinking some of the wonderful wine we bought that day. Pure heaven. The night ended with heated games of poker, charades and 21. Good times.
Friday was all day wine tasting which began with a 10:00am tasting…sounds like trouble?? It was trouble! The vineyard was Moss Wood and this was probably the most exclusive one we visited. They had the most amazing Cabernets which they have not even bottled yet and let us taste out of the barrels! Another wonderful aspect of Moss Wood was their amazing wine museum where they kept all their inventory stock. Apparently wineries have to keep a certain number of stock from each vintage.
The day proceeded with more tasting, drunken singing to the 80’s in the car and the most fabulous lunch I have ever had at a winery called Vasse Felix (translated…Cat Piss). I don’t think I have ever had a meal this good. You could argue that it was the fact that I was a bit tipsy that made the meal so good but I don’t think so. It was amazing. The most innovative dishes I have ever had.
That evening we headed to the town of Prevalley for dinner followed by a couple of beers and pool at the local watering hole. This bar reminded me of the Jersey Shore meets, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, meets OTB. What do I mean by that?? Patrons were either 20 or 92 there was not much of a happy medium so we were defiantly in the minority. Group A) max 21 years old, really cute surfer girls and guys all tanned and blond and most, incredibly wasted…Group B) were all men well beyond their youth sporting weathered faces, pony tales and baseball hats..basically group A in 100 years. Pure comedy!
We headed back to the house and popped open one last bottle before bed which turned out to be many bottles and watching the sunrise. I knew that these people will be my friends for a very long time when during the conversation, “Name the song that you are most embarrassed to admit you like” (mine was the Macarena). John who is a FX trader, pretty tough British guy said that he loved the sound track from Les Miz!! I was shocked. His wife was like, yeah he really loves it. Sure enough it was on his ipod and we were singing all of our favorite tunes for the next hour.
Needless to say we were all pretty wrecked as we woke at 1pm but nothing could keep up away from one last day of tasting. We ended the day at a friend of mine from works winery, Green Valley. He encouraged us to pass by but warned that it was a very rustic place, not the atmosphere of most of the others. I was a bit nervous that his wine was going to be gross but it was wonderful and he won all these awards in Australia. It was such a special experience. He gave us the dirt on all the other wineries and gave us a tour of the whole vineyard, it was really special. We managed to take 3 cases off his hands and he said perhaps you can be my agent. Not a bad fall back option don’t ya think??? After the second great BBQ of the trip, we headed to the beach with some wine and watched the sunset one last time.
I would defiantly recommend this trip to anyone who is coming for a visit and not really interested in going for the real Asian experience.
I am not sure what the distribution is like in the U.S. but here were my favorites from the trip:
Moss Wood - Cabernet pricey but worth it.
Pierro – Blanc de Blanc. Great summer white wine
Green Valley – Riesling (not too sweet like reg. Riesling, Cabernet, Chardonnay)
Cape Mentelle – Chardonnay, Zinfandel, Marmaduke Red (wonderful wine and very cheap AUS$14/bottle)
Gralyn – White, port, pink port, Shiraz Port and Atrizan (the $70 dessert wine that tastes like caramel)
It was truly an amazing experience. Jim, the trip photograher, has some amazing pics that he is saving on a disk. I will share all once I receive.
Now only one more week until my next vacation!!!!!
Love Me
