Australia ~ Grape Grazing in the Yarra Valley

Yesterday we decided to do some wine tasting in the Yarra Valley, about an hour from Melbourne. There was an organized event, so several of the wineries had live entertainment, and were offering food. The first winery was really nice. Not too crowded. We tasted and liked the some of the wines ... but I wasn't ready to committ at the first winery, and we headed on to the next. Chandon. A favorite of Yvette's. Chandon was so crowded we could barely get in, and they weren't actually offering any wine to taste. You could buy by the glass, but you couldn't try it first. So we went on to another winery. And another. We got pretty tired pretty quickly of the huge crowds, so we went out to the nether-regions of the valley and hit a winery that wasn't so centrally located. Finally, we had some peace, and we had lunch while we listened to some jazz. The wine was really not very good at all, but it was excellent to get away from the crowds.

In the end we decided to shelve the passes and festival glasses, and go to the wineries that weren't on the tour. We found a couple of pretty good wines, had some time to talk to the people at the wineries, and had a much better time of it. And the Yarra Valley is really very beautiful.