Barossa & Adelaide Hills Weekend

Last weekend I was treated to a long weekend at the Barossa, it was about 18 years ago that I last visited and it was indeed a treat.  We flew into Adelaide and made our way to Adelaide Hills and the well known Bridgewater Mill for lunch and tasting of the wonderful Petaluma Wines.   Next Next we wandered to Shaw & Smith and enjoyed a fleet of wines with matching cheese, the wines were superb and the highlight was having a good discussion with Michael Smith who introduced himself when he overheard a reference to Shanghai -- a place he had just returned from.

Our destination was the Barossa Valley -- renown for fine wines and gourmet food; and we were not disappointed.  The Barossa Shiraz wine's are amongst the best in Australia and we tasted many great drops. Amongst our favourite vineyards were:

• Rockford
• Torbeck
• Charles Melton
• Henschke

Two Hands was easily the worst we visited; however they had some really great wines to compare against.  The only saving grace was that Two Hands had a series of Shiraz from 4 different regions: Barossa, McLaren Vale, Heathcote and Padthway.

We also visited Trevor Jones, Penfolds and  Jacob's Creek -- each of these were good but not great.

But for my birthday dinner, Anna booked us into Appellation, perhaps the finest restaurant in the Barossa Valley.  The food was superb and very much a take on the 3 Michellin star -- Chateau Cordeillan Bages from Pauillac, it was really good but never reached the heights that the Bordeaux classic inspiration must have instigated.

As we had brought various gourmet food items from the Barossa Farmer's market and Maggie Beer's Farm, meant that the experience would linger for many more months after this trip !!!

The Bledisloe Cup

Last weekend I took my two sons to the Rugby - a tradition and the most revered game between Australia and New Zealand. It was a special event that I had planned and we had not seen a "Bledisloe Cup' together for at least 12 years.

Having been starved of live rugby for many years, I was looking forward to this game and hosting my boys more than I realised.   The weekend together was really great and we spent some time with Anna  doing some walks and of course lots of eating.

Anna prepared a feast of 'tapas' and then we made the short walk to the Eithad Stadium, which is just less than 10 minutes away.

We sat in Gold tickets and the view was good, but we wondered how liberal the definition of ''Gold' was applied to the seating arrangements. The Rugby game itself started perfectly with Australia scoring from a freakish kick chargedown, however when NZ scored the same try within 2 minutes ;  it was clear that this was not going to be an easy evening.

If I summarised the game, the kiwis were playing a new style of game and trying new tactics.  These tactics worked well and Australia simply had no answer.   It was hard to watch as NZ were just so good, and as much as the Wallabies tried it was to no avail. 

In the end the real winner of the evening was myself -- who had managed to get my two sons down for the weekend.