Quick tour of the Barawesome Valley

Four years after her initial foray into the city, Pooey went back to Radelaide to locum. Suboo had never been there before and so she decided that we two were going to visit Pooey and go on a wine tour. Therefore this past weekend, after rushing to finish a complete 2nd draft of the thesis (hence my lack of posting!) and following only 4 hours of sleep, I took the first flight out of Melbourne for a rush visit. Pooey picked the tour and I was really glad it was a large coach because it allowed me to sleep in the back during the (bumpy) ride to the Barossa Valley - or as we decided to christen it, the BarAWESOME valley. Hehehehe.

Our first stop was the *Whispering Wall*, a dam wall that was found to possess some very interesting acoustic properties!

The wall. Apparently they found out the sound-transmitting properties of the wall when two guys were talking at one end, and their manager heard them speaking at the other...

Pooey and Suboo contemplate the wall

We had a very nice tour group and some of the very tall Scottish people on the tour volunteered to be the ones to test out whether it worked or not. One of the guys ran to the other end of the wall and they proceeded to ask him questions. I kept thinking *stop answering the questions you're asking him, until I realised...HE was answering the questions! Freak-AY!!!

Whispering through another wall!

We then went to the first stop on our wine tour, Kies, where I had a sample of the few of the wines there and decided to purchase a small bottle of the 'Bastardo' Port - known as the 'Little Bugger.'

Our next stop, our good ol' friends LANGMEIL!!! We listened to the spiel again about the role of Lutheran immigants in the history of the Barawesome Valley, and how the 167 year old shiraz grapes were probably the oldest ones in the world.

I'm happy to be back!

Suboo looks around

Unlike our last visit, the old old vines were in fruit and our guide advised us to pick some fruit off the vines and do a taste comparison with younger vines. Oh my. I could be a tosser and proclaim that from now on, I will only eat grapes from 167 year old vines because they are jam-packed full of flavour...but I won't because those plants don't do high yields anymore and I wouldn't want to detract from the wine yield.

So happy to be with such old and tasty grapes!

Unlike the last time we were at Langmeil, they hadn't sold out of the signature wine, The Freedom, which is made from those 167 year old vines. Apparently we weren't actually supposed to be allowed to do a tasting of the wine, but somehow some of the old American tourists from our tour wheedled them into opening a bottle. It was...how can I say...DELICIOUS. Me and Pooey actually stared at each other after taking a sip of the Freedom, and just going *OMG, wow....that's good.*

Sipping my Freedom shiraz.

I must say, their decision to open that bottle for us was a mighty fine decision by the Langmeil people because Pooey and I decided to buy a bottle each. And at $100 a pop, those bottles don't come cheap. I think I'll crack it open for my PhD graduation. Maybe I'm biased because of our prior visit, but I think Langmeil was the best winery we visited. Either way, they must have been pretty happy that we rocked up because I walked out having paid for almost $600 worth of wine - lets just say that submission day will be boozy!

Our next winery and lunchstop was the Kaesler Winery, owner of shiraz vines that were, alas, only 120 years old. They wouldn't allow us to drink that shiraz (wonderfully named 'Old Bastard'), but we did taste their crisp semi-sweet riesling, Rizza. We thought it would go very well with Lobster noodles.

Kaesler have very nice grounds which I can imagine people using for parties.

Mmmm, parallel

Suboo being Asian, Pooey not ready

Roses!

Suboo tiptoes under the arches

But they also had easily accessible wine...I dunno, vats...which allowed us to do more silly photos!

Our last stop of the day was Wolf Blass. I dunno...after the high quality that was Langmeil and Kaesler, Wolf Blass wines seemed a bit...ho hum. Their structured tasting compared to the more relaxed ones that preceded it seemed a bit stern as well. Or maybe it was because I was tired and the heat of the day and booze were hitting me. Either way, Pooey and I needed to replicate the silly photos we'd taken year before and things were all good.

Pointing Pooey

Hiding Mooey

We three being sensible (for once).

And then we all fell asleep on the bus ride back into town!