Yarra Valley Wineries

We visited three wineries but started off the day with "morning tea" (breakfast) near the train station with our tour group. We sat with two other couples - one from New Zealand and the other from Norway. After a quick biscuit, we walked outside, and our guide gave us bird seed. Not even a second later, a bird pounced on my hand. One sat on my head. Another hopped on my should. Some of them were beautiful with bright red and rich green colors. The other half of the probably 35-40 birds were cockatoos - huge and mean. When they go down for a bite of seed on your hand, they make sure they don't miss a morsel. I think one of the birds took a nice chunk out of my palm. There are some great pictures of all this. For me, the best part was one leaving his/her breakfast on Jamie's shoulder... ha!

After our morning tea we took a train ride on a historic steam train called the Puffing Billy. The walls of the train explained it's life from how it was built hundreds of years ago and how it is today.

Our bus then took us to the first winery called Ferguson's - a family-owned winery and restaurant. We sipped on a fresh glass of a Cabernet-Merlot mix and ate a roast beef lunch with vegetables and bread. Definitely a first-class meal. We had a tasting there as well before venturing off to the next stop.

We had another tasting at Dominique Portet, the second winery. Here, the man explained the difference between the steel and oak barrels among some other facts. We sampled a more acidy-type wine and compared it to the oaks. Jamie liked the acidic ones better, but I like the oak.

After this, we made our way to the last winery, which was probably the most unique. It's a champagne winery, so we learned about the process of making it true "bubbly" and the different types of sparkling wine. The vineyard was owned by the same company that makes Dom Perigon, Belvedere vodka, and a list of other designer brands. The tour guide rattled off the names of each brand almost overconfidently... I think to make sure we understood the caliber of the winery. Others might have thought she seemed a bit snobby. Either way, the sparkling wine lived up to her speech. We sampled it, and much to my surprise, we liked it. I usually think it's too sweet and sugary, but the type we tried was just right.

We stopped at a pub on the way back, James Squire, because an Australian family we chatted with recommended it for the pub's microbrews. (P.S. The 16-year-old girl who I talked with from the family asked if I see celebrities all the time and if America is really like all the "American movies" like Mean Girls, American Pie, etc. Odd, isn't it?!) Sitting in the microbrew, we saw some peanuts on the bar. Jamie grabbed a few and a woman glared at him as if the bar's peanuts were hers... and for good reason. She bought the bar snacks that we're used to having for free sitting on the bar. There's a small chance she sighed "dumb Americans" under her breath as we apologized.

That plus the bird poo landing on Jamie's should that morning made his day pretty interesting, and I had a few good laughs.