Before we had the Sprogs, Husband and I would go on wine-tasting holidays in our yellow jellybean car. When we weren’t tippling at cellar doors, we’d browse antique stores and buy preserves. Yes, we were those sort of wankers. Given half a chance and our former bank balance we still would be. One memorable trip, we went to the Barossa Valley, Maclaren Vale, Coonawarra and Rutherglen and managed to jam 10 cases of wine into the jellybean’s boot. I miss the jellybean. It was fun (and Tardis-like in its ability to stow wine).
Husband had long, girly hair back then. One day, a car pulled up beside the jellybean at the traffic lights and a bloke leaned out the window and said, “G’day gorgeous” to Husband’s long, girly hair. Husband turned to look at him and the bloke totally freaked out. Mainly, I think, because he was worried his mate in the driver’s seat might have seen him chatting up a bloke. Priceless.
Damn the reprobate who stole, stripped and abandoned the jellybean in Greenacre.
I digress.
Today, Husband and I decided to relive our youth and take the Sprogs to Rutherglen for a spot of wine tasting. The Sprogs weren’t keen, they didn’t think watching us drink wine sounded like much fun. But the rest of the holiday has been pretty much about them – a trip to the Australian National Museum, Brave in 3D, rock-climbing, scootering to a park with a flying fox. So we told them to suck it up princesses and headed off.
Rutherglen is an easy 40-minute drive from Albury. It’s crammed with olive groves and vineyards and fancy restaurants and farms and grassy hills. The Sprogs were quite captivated by all the animals grazing in the fields. They can almost tell their sheep from their cattle now, which is a vast improvement on the first time we took Sprog 1 to the country and she shouted “look, elephant!” when she spotted her first cow.
Our first stop was All Saints winery. It looks a bit like a castle, which captivated the Sprogs for about two seconds. Fortunately the cellar door had a little kiddie table with pencils and pictures of castles to colour. So we parked them there and sipped (and bought) some lovely riesling and tokay. Then we popped next door to the Indigo Cheese Co. to nibble on gorgeous double bries and gruyeres and marinated fettas. All hugely expensive, so we restricted ourselves to a $20 wheel of Tarago Enterprize Double Brie to take as a gift to our sister-in-law when we lob there tonight for an extended stay. If it hadn’t been $11.25 for 150g, I might also have considered the Pont Leveque, a French cheese that matures to “a sticky golden paste with a dense, creamy flavour” (yummier than it sounds). Fortunately the in-laws purchased a nice Marcel Petite Comte Gruyere at $10.35 for 150g for us to scoff as we watched the Tour de France last night.
Next stop was Cofields winery where we sipped wines and agonised over the perfect drop to have with our lunch at the cafe next door, Pickled Sisters. My mother-in-law and I settled on a sparkling rose with strawberry flavours. Pickled Sisters gave the Sprogs pictures of dogs to colour in while they waited for their pizza with salad and chips. (I will never understand why restaurants serve chips with pizza on kids menus, but the Sprogs thought it was fabbo. Dags would be horrified.) The adults indulged in a “vineyard platter” of muscat & chicken liver pate, chicken terrine with chutney, Butt’s smoked trout, spiced eggplant, Gooramadda olives and Milawa cheese for starters; then Husband and I both ordered the duck with a muscat and honey glaze as our main. Husband proclaimed it the best duck he’s had in ages.
We rolled out of the restaurant and headed to Pfeiffer’s winery, which looked like it would be quite fun in summer, with its tables and chairs arranged on a scenic bridge and a cubby house for the Sprogs to explore. We tasted and purchased a few rieslings and a tokay and wobbled back to the car to argue over whether we had another winery in us. Husband said we did, the Sprogs and I whinged that we didn’t, Husband insisted we did, so we drove to Campbells. Campbells cleverly gave the Sprogs a treasure hunt sheet to amuse themselves, with Freddo Frogs as prizes. They also offered very civilised nibbles with their tastings – olives, bread sticks, little wedges of cheese. If I hadn’t been so stuffed with duck and so nervous about not buying enough wine to justify the free nibbles, I’d have been tucking into it with gusto. As it was, we bought a few rieslings, semillions and a tokay – which I thought justified a couple of olives and the two Freddo Frogs – and called it a day for wine tasting.
Our final stop was Rutherglen proper, which has the makings of being a quaint little town with its gorgeous old pubs and shopfronts, but appears to have fallen on hard retail times, with many cafes and stores shut down and even the ones that seemed to still in business closed at 4pm on a Wednesday. But it was nice to stretch our legs after all that wine and food, plus I found these cute little wooden toys for the Sprogs in one of the few open stores (you roll them backwards, then let them go and they shoot across the floor and leave dents in the in-laws new skirting boards, fabulous). Then it was home time.
After beers and expensive cheese in front of the tellie, my father-in-law grilled some wagyu burgers for us to have on fresh turkish bread for dinner. Then he cracked open a vintage Morris Grant Tokay for dessert. I’m going to be quite sad to leave this morning.
HOW’S YOUR SCHOOL HOLIDAY GOING?
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