Wine-ing While We Are Waiting

Well the sun came back out earlier in the week (after 2 days of heavy showers....and a flooded tent. Yes as I said, that's another story!) and with no work around still, we opted for a bit of good old fashioned  Saturday wine tasting. Of course, you cannot do any of that on an empty stomach, so we did a good aussie breakkie of snags, rooms (mushrooms), and grilled tomato first. Then had a wander past the 'bullets & bits' store (as you do in any country town). We never saw it opened, so we are still fantasising about it being a shop full of different types of chocolate bullets. That suits us better :)

Highlands Heritage Estate Winery. They have beautiful rolling hills and a decent couple of rieslings and dessert wines (They had two dessert wines with real gold flakes in them. Really!). They also boast a berry patch and sell their local famous berries from the cellar door, and a helipad for the local helicopter tour to work out of. Sadly, we were told that someone had torched the helicopter the night before at Orange Airport, so it was out of action for a bit (someone obviously didn't like their flight).

This winery (Patina Wines) was amazing! The wine maker Gerald is known as a perfectionist and makes some of Orange's classiest and suave wines. He only releases them to the public if he likes them, and he only makes wine styles he likes. He taught himself wine making (after being a cotton farmer in the USA and NSW for many years), and his passion and dedication shows. The family home with landscaped gardens is the actual cellar door too, and Gerald's wife does all the art work on the wine labels (and we found out she did all the gardens too). We were greeted and led into the cellar door by his pooch as you can see. We were blown away by nearly all of his wines, but chose his 2010 Cab Sav to take away. We will definitely be back for more...

Enjoying the fruits of our labour! Ok someone else's labour and our wine tasting selection. The Highland Heritage Estate Nikki D Riesling went perfect with the cheese, crackers, and fruit plater. Yes that is Dom pissed in the last pic. Those that know him so well, know that he is gone after a couple of sips :)

These above pics are from the Orange Botanical Gardens. It was lovely, however a little warn out (we suspect largely due to the drought they have experienced out here. As you can see in the cracked pond bed of the last pic). There was some interesting trees (pines) and roses about. The pic that looks like fruit is actually the base of some pink roses that hadn't flowered yet.

The first pic is some ducks sun baking (which Dom thought was pretty humorous) and then some very large wild mushrooms (Sean Killeen we thought of you with these....and all your backyard mushroom growing efforts back in Bronte).

This is a walnut tree! Shit it is massive (as you can see by the pic with Leonie under it). We weren't sure at first, until we cracked open the little fruit looking ball to reveal a soft immature walnut). The sap stained our fingers too. Picking these when ripe would be a mammoth effort...

All that hard work of wine tasting, getting a tan by the local pools, relaxing, and strolling through the gardens....called for a seriously good gelato. This gelato shop in Molong (30mins away) is well known in the region as being the best and since we missed out on them at the Frida night street fair the week before (they sold out by the time we had shown up), we thought we'd make the effort to drive out.

G.I.M.A. (Gelato Ingredients Manufacturers of Australia) are unique in that they are not just a gelato shop, they sell the gelato ingredients already mixed in jars, ready to be make into gelato at home by the public...and by restaurants, cafes, etc. We liked the fact that there philosophy was different in that they aren't keeping the secret for themselves, but allowing everyone to enjoy, everywhere.

The gelato sizes were ridiculous (as you can see). $7.50 for 3 flavours of that size, brought us back to the old days in Sydney when you'd get the same.

For your taste bud interest, these were our selections:

Leonie - Coffee, Macadamia & Chocolate, Cookies & Cream (her pic of the bunch = coffee)

Dom - Pistachio, Lychee & Coconut, Fig & Ginger (his pic of the bunch = pistachio)

Leonie taking a picture of the sign that reads; Proud supporters of the 100 mile diet, local eating for global change. Everything in this shop is from local growers, from local vodka to almonds!