9.56am Yalumba Clocktower, Angaston, Barossa Valley, South Australia
Back at my desk, very cold, misty, drizzly morning that looks like it might clear into a nice day. We’ve certainly had a serious winter here so far, and with that comes the sniffles, coughs and colds, which finally felled me this week and I had to go hide at home for a couple of days. I’ve got garlic tablets, vitamin pills, lemsip cold & flu, seneca and ammonia expectorant to clear the chest, vicks vaporub to keep warm, and a couple of local ‘never fail’ potions to get me well. I’m surprised I don’t rattle when I walk!
So thanks to Tony for posting yesterday. He’s the techo wiz that makes my blog look good, and he is currently trying to work out a way that we can put a calendar on the blog that shows where we’re doing events and when. Seeing as I’m off next week for this 4 month tour – as you can imagine, we’re flat out trying to get all sorts of things completed, and Tony got google directions on how to get from home base here at the winery in Angaston to our distributors – Negociants USA – office in the California town of Napa. Just to see what they suggested – seeing as we’ve been juggling flights and things for a while now into a workable schedule.
What we got was a 124-stage trip between Yalumba at Angaston and Negociants USA in Napa – which included 3 kayak legs – I kid you not! – one from the coast of Australia’s Northern Territory 3,358 miles across the Pacific Ocean to the southern coast of Japan; one from the northern coast of Japan 3,879 miles across more of the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii; and the final one tells you to “turn right at the Turtle Bay Hilton (in Hawaii) go )0.1 mile (close to the beach!) then kayak 2,756 miles across even more of the Pacific Ocean, entering the USA via the coast of Washington state.
Sensational – the logic of this set of directions. It does serve to remind us though that we are completely “on the other side of the world” over here, and that we will be covering an enormous amount of miles as we take our wines this trip – literally – to the world.
PS good news as we’re about to head off though, as we’ve just heard that Kev Glastonbury’s 2005 Signature Cabernet Shiraz – which is one of the new release reds we’ll be showing across the board for the first time – has just won the trophy for Best Australian Red Wine at the International Wine Challenge (UK) 2009 in London. Seeing as this particular competition is regarded as “the best and biggest blind tasting in the world”, it’s given us a great shot in the arm to go out with.