24 Jan: Melbourne (VIC) -- day trip to Mornington Peninsula.

Thank goodness the "Vista Wine Glass" from 2008 remained intact during the festivities

Let's just say that the motivation wasn't exactly overflowing to get up and workout after last night's festivities. Chris and Shelly stayed up later to clean up, and I think +Marc and I crashed around 12:30am? Anyway we slept a little later and then headed down south for our day trip of wine tasting in the Mornington Peninsula.

I chose to head down there on this day because the temps were supposed to be in the high 30s (Celsius) which means mid to upper 90s in Fahrenheit. Being that the Peninsula is close to the water, I thought that might mitigate the heat factor and fortunately, it did. By about 4-5 degrees Celsius.

We made an appointment at a winery recommended by +Erik called Principia (pronounced Prin-kip-ia). Darrin, the owner and winemaker, met us and basically said the 2011 vintage was really bad and had to trash a few barrels along the way. For most of the country, 2011 was a really rainy season for growing grapes. which probably would have included late 2010 from a calendar year perspective. He explained some of the differences climate wise within the region (aka appellation), which was helpful as we tasted throughout the day. His 2010 Pinots were really tasty as were his Chardys (the Aussies abbreviate pretty much everything if you haven't noticed). He thinks that since it has been warm for his vines that he plans on picking his grapes early and veraison has already kicked in for his red grapes. Another great reco by Erik.

View of Sorrento after we walked around the town

After meeting with Darrin, Marc and I decided to break-up the tasting with a quick trip down to a beach town called Sorrento. We walked around by the beach and checked it out before heading back to Red Hill, the location of the wineries where we were tasting. We had lunch at the Port Phillip Estate, which was gorgeous. But we also had lunch there because the estate also owns Kooyong Wines, which was a label that was recommended to me by several people. Over lunch, we had two Pinots and one Chardy. All very good and well balanced. No 2011s served. :-) Nice reco by Jeff, +Chris, and Luke.

After lunch, we went over to Eldridge Estate where the owner and winemaker was in the room working on some sample estimating. He was trying to figure out his approximate yield for this year's harvest. Interesting exercise. He thinks that he will be picking on schedule, but is kind of holding his breath on the smoke taint possibility from the brushfires in Gippsland. And the smoke does travel. Again, it is going to come down to veraison which could be theoretically happening now or soon after (depending on region). The wines were ok, but not great.

BTW, the wine opinions in this one are mine since Marc is not a Pinot or Chardy wine guy typically.

Marc and Jill post-lunch at Port Phillip Estate overlooking vines on the Mornington Peninsula

After Eldridge Estate, we went over to a winery recommended by one of the winemakers we met in Yarra a couple of days earlier - Main Ridge Estate. Apparently they are the grandfather of them all in the region. As luck would have it, we met Nat, who is the founder and owner of the winery. Nat was probably about the same age as "Crusty" (and funny) Bill Chambers, but had a completely different demeanor. Very friendly, soft-spoken and low-key. And his wines were very good as advertised. Nat said it was a pretty warm year for him, and he thought he may be picking earlier than usual, but he couldn't confirm. Typically picks in March, so obviously the smoke taint and heat will continue to be a factor.



After that, we headed back to Melbourne to meet Shelly and Chris for dinner. But first, we had to get Marc to try some vegemite, an Aussie favorite. It definitely is a "love it or hate it" thing. People don't seem to be on the fence about it. So we captured it on video and Shelly used a cracker instead of toast to serve it on. It wasn't a favorite of Marc's, but good for him for trying it. As an aside, my marmite and vegemite days are long gone.

Dinner was in Chinatown at the longtime mainstay in Melbourne called Flower Drum. The 4 of us went family-style and the food was proper Cantonese (not Western Chinese). Oh, and it was good. Thank goodness the weather cooled down enough for us to walk home because we were all stuffed! It was a wonderful way to wrap up our action-packed "booza-palooza" with the Blacks. We are definitely sorry to be leaving as we really enjoyed spending time with them and getting to know Melbourne and the surrounding areas.