A bit of The Golden Mile

Friday 3 January

What a glorious sunny day… until it wasn’t!

Started with a Harley walk in blue skies & sunshine - down the vines, dodging the light rain of the irrigation system which occasionally sprays out water in odd directions, and along to the river. We stopped in at Hans Herzog on the way to enquire if Harley would be welcome and if we could book in for a tasting later. The reply was no and yes in that order, so we booked a dog-free tasting for 4pm!

Around noon we hopped on the E-bikes and set off for wine tasting & platters at Allan Scott Winery (been craving their platter since meeting Chris & Fi there last Sunday.

It was quite busy in the tasting room on our arrival so we were allocated a barrel to stand at and talked through the tasting process here; they then cleared us a low barrel and outside seats in the front garden area, but it turned out to be a bit breezy and the clouds were threatening rain, so moments later we headed back inside to nab a newly vacated pair of tables in the sunshine in the corner of the tasting room - third time lucky!!!

Tasting at Allan Scott was quite a novel automated vending machine style experience - all the wines were in chilled/not chilled cabinets as appropriate, and each cabinet had a slot for the card you were given; you popped your wine glass under the chosen dispenser, slotted your card in like a vending machine, selected the pour of wine you desired for that bottle and it was dispensed and the total was added to your card.

Allan Scott Winery is a gorgeous place with manicured gardens, a pretty veggie patch and lots of fun things to look at and buy. They also had a lot of medals and awards on display so are obviously well regarded in the region.

It began to cloud over as we left and detoured to Moa Brewery on our way home… fortunately, as the heavens opened and we would have been drenched if we’d cycled any further! Feeling a little peckish we approached the food truck - I presumed they were offering dessert options and asked where was the chocolate? The dude pointed to himself and said right here, and over there's the Ginger... his red headed counterpart!!! They did great karaage chicken too!

With phenomenal timing we left half an hour later and managed to get home without getting wet!

I was over the rain at this point so drove Abby, Jez & Louis over to Hans Herzog and left them to it. Back home at the vineyard the mower/vines trimmer was in action - what a cool machine 😎

Louis BBQed dinner in the rain and we ate in the Moho before the skies cleared a bit and we went to bed pleased that despite all the rain, Banjo had not let in any of it 🎉