With the help of the ubiquitous Halliday it wasn't difficult to sort out where we were going in Clare, and the decisions made were the result of very early recognition of the fact that we probably wouldn't be back. Fortunately, the number of Five Stars was small enough to allow us to get to all the ones that were open to the public at the time. It took some doing, but we managed it.
Now, since everywhere we went was highly rated, there wasn't too much chance of us not adding my name and contact details to the mailing list. Interestingly, none of the places we visited offered a Wine Club a la Pfeiffer and Brook Eden. It would have been interesting if someone had, though whether that would have ensured an on the spot signup would have depended on whether we got there towards lunchtime on Day Two. In any case, the only place that offered a Wine Club was Pikes, and their version was one of the buy two dozen and you're in variety. Having left contact details everywhere I wasn't too worried by the lack of scheduled deliveries since I could place an order when it suited me.
At least, that was the theory. In practice it has taken me almost two years to get to all the places I wanted to buy from, partly due to prior and ongoing commitments but largely the consequence of emails and phone calls making offers that were difficult to refuse. Not that I'm complaining, but it made it difficult to get to certain places where it looked like a definite case of two cases.
I finally got around to placing that order with Pikes last week.
We had to be much more selective when it came to the Barossa since we expected to arrive just before lunch time and would only have an afternoon to go tasting. Long time aspirations ensured that Rockford was automatically on the list, and for one more definite Seppeltsfield went onto the list with Thorn-Clarke as an option if time permitted.
None offered an automatic delivery Wine Club, though Rockford does have the Stone Wall Society, which operates on a wait for a vacancy basis. You don't get onto the mailing list unless you've actually bought something. Given Summer Drinking options an immediate order for some of the Alicante Bouchet soon took care of that consideration.
Until this point, signing up for the Wine Club had been a case of finding a place we liked that offered one, but with the South Oz Odyssey we were limiting ourselves to Five Star ratings, so you'd expect that everywhere would be likely to be somewhere we liked.
Some, of course, you like more than others so the Wine Club Question comes down to availability and the actual option on offer.
Those matters reared their heads again in the lead up to the transcontinental trip on the Indian Pacific. As far as Five Star ratings are involved, there's no way we were going to be able to visit all of them. As it was I managed to work out a mixture of iconic establishments and lesser known places of interest that would keep us busy.
I'd been surprised by the number of places that offered freight free delivery to the eastern seaboard, so if there were Wine Clubs on offer, the question was going to end up as a matter of format and frequency.
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