WG+M Travel Blog

So Monday morning started off a bit out of whack as our driver was nearly forty-five minutes late, making our hour long drive to the valley a little tense. Nathan and I didn't want to disappoint our first host, the talented and easy-going Rick Burge of Burge Family, by being to late. We encouraged our funnyman driver, Len (who we'll speak of later), to speed and we pulled in a respectable fifteen minute late. Rick, who was the first Aussie we heard say "cricky" and dressed a lot like the late Steve Irwin, showed us the famed Draycott vineyard, discussed the 2007 harvest (down 50%) and tasted us on some fantastic wines. The highlight of this particular tasting was three vintages of his Olive Hill Semillon- 2006, 2004 and 2002. Each vintage was marvelous in its own way, though the 2004 was my favorite. We are always fully stocked with Rick's wines, including the always stunning Garnacha. Next we travelled to visit on of Australia's great wine characters, Rob Gibson. Rob was a longtime Penfolds employee, turning out some great wine for them in the 1980s. Like many winemakers who go on to start their own projects Rob took some of those contacts he had made while working for Penfolds and used them to find some of the best land and grape sources in the Barossa. At Gibson he crafts a number of amazing wines from all of the varietals you might expect- shiraz, grenache, cabernet, etc. All of the wines were fantastic, especially the Wilfreda (a blend), the Grenache, and the Old Vine Collection Shiraz. If you can believe it all of this happened before 11AM (we did this every day and I know none of you have any sympathy for us). Next we found ourselves at Yalumba, perhaps one of the oldest family owned wineries in all of Australia. This was quiet a different place than anywhere we had visited yet, that much we could tell as we pulled in to what looked like a fairly massive complex. For those of you who have travelled to Napa before Yalumba is much more in the vein of a larger California winery. Yet immediately our host Garreth, a native of Scottland now six years in Australia, put us at ease and made us feel like family. He began our tour by showing us the grounds and explaining the incredible history of this great family estate. Yalumba is the only winery in the Southern Hemisphere that has its own cooperage on site and it makes nearly fifty percent of its own barrels. For those of you who don't understand just how amazing this is let me explain- barrels from France can cost $1200-$2000 yet Yalumba can make their own for around $400, plus they can make them to suit, right there in their own backyard. Next we toured the museum where the owners keep massive stores of back vintages dating back to the early 1900s. Then we were treated to lunch where we met Rob, the sixth generation owner of Yalumba and Jane our loquacious guide for the rest of the day. Jane was great- she was full of historical infomation, geeky gossip and winespeak that Nate and I really dug, plus she turned us on to Blonde Coffee in Angosten. We'll get her to Atlanta to wow you all soon. We tasted at Yalumba as well- if you can't get into their wines then as they say here "you're a Wally." From Yalumba we stumbled our way into Glaetzer in the early evening. The charming and talented Ben Glaetzer is the force behind such impressive project as Amon-Ra, Mitolo, Heartland and of course Glaetzer, in addition to that he has twenty-five other clients that in some capacity or another use his facilities. We tasted through the Glaetzer and Heartland wines (the Dolcetto Lagrien blend was a winner) as well as the 2005 Godolphin and Amon-Ra (Parker only gave it 98 this year!) after a tour of the winery. Later we went to a nice place called 1918 with Ben, Vicky (the winery's headmistress) and their families- these kind of events would become the norm- the interacting with the families of the winemakers and I can't tell you how much Nathan and I appreciate it. That night we were made to feel like family, sitting around a table with friends eating good food, drinking Coopers Pale Ale, Amon-Ra and Godolpin and having a laugh at the Linder brothers expense (Langmeil). Well if you've made it all the way to the end of this then thanks. I'll say just one more thing- there's much more to come!