When the last of the tasters had gone we had the chance to sit down and have a chat to Rhonda rather than the full tasting experience. I had, after all, already tried the Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz and their trademark Big Men In Tights Rose, so it was more an exercise in conversation while I had a sample of the Chardonnays, the Pinot Noir and the Merlot Noir, which probably suited someone who’d been hard at the tasting spiel all day.
Discussions revealed that the whole shebang was largely the result of living next door to a bottle shop in Randwick in the seventies and becoming intrigued by wine, something I find reasonable and understandable and we escaped from the winery just before sundown, much later than we would probably have preferred. In hindsight I probably should have pencilled in somewhere to go next to get us out of there earlier, but given the nostalgia and other factors we could also have been caught there for quite a while longer.
It's amazing how things you'd forgotten come flooding back when there's someone in the vicinity to jog your memory.
We’d been back at base for a little under a week when an email suggested a wine dinner in Bowen, which raised issues briefly discussed a thousand kilometres away.
Steve’s from Ayr, and while we were on the premises he’d mentioned the fact that while he has his wines on sale in a number of big name Sydney restaurants (he rattled off a number of familiar names, though I’m not inclined to chance the accuracy of Hughesy’s memory) he’s so far failed to sell any into an outlet in his home town.
More particularly, it seems, whenever he’s approached a restaurant in the Burdekin with an offer to deliver a number of paying diners if he can also provide the wine for the dinner the proposal has been unfavourably received.
Strange.
One would have thought that an opportunity to get a number of diners that wouldn’t have been there under normal circumstances through the door when you’re already paying kitchen and wait staff would have been greeted with open arms. A quick check with Steve, who was giving himself a holiday at Cape Upstart, revealed that I was supposed to organise a venue and rattle up some diners, two tasks I thought wouldn’t be too difficult.
The venue side of things was remarkably easy. A phone call to Browny at the QB had him go into immediate overdrive, and it wasn’t long before we were looking at a three course dinner matched to a couple of wines that Steve would provide at $55 per head, thank you very much.
That $55 had me scratching my head, figuring it might be seen as excessive to people who weren’t familiar with the winery, but second thoughts suggested that if you went out for a three course meal with several glasses of wine you’d probably be looking at a bit more than $55. Given the fact that you're unlikely to find a main course for under $20, and anything approaching a reasonable bottle's going to be at least that much, I think I can rest my case.
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