Given an array of Rieslings and a fresh palate, I’d be able to work my way around to identifying one particular wine as the pick of the bunch, but it would take some time.
Once the task had been accomplished palate burnout would make it difficult to repeat the exercise, even after a couple of hours’ break on, say, a range of Cabernets.
An overwhelmed, temporarily burnt out palate accounts for my relatively lukewarm response to the wines we tasted at the final stop, Reilly’s in Mintaro.
Again, I’m forced to skip over details after indicating everything was impressive, with great examples of dry-grown wines on offer.
From Mintaro, we headed around for a non-tasting tour of the countryside and stopped for a stroll around Watervale before heading back to Auburn for a rest before what we expected to be a light dinner.
But appearances are deceptive.
When the packages we’d bought earlier had been placed in bowls, accompanied by a glass of the Knappstein ‘05 Three (a perfect match, by the way), a $9.50 Thai beef salad from Wild Saffron proved to be a surprisingly filling meal.