Finally…a breather

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We got back from Australia three weeks ago, but it’s been tough trying to catch up, both at work and in real life. So I was more than a little happy to see this long weekend coming.

Granted, it wasn’t a long weekend for everyone (including Nellie) but it was long a weekend for me. At least, it was supposed to be a long weekend. I actually spent a full day in the office (part of the aforementioned ‘catching up at work’) before heading to old friend the Duke of York for a drink. The Duke pubs have always had a pretty generic draft list, but that night I had two from Muskoka (a Mad Tom and a Dark) and Nellie had a Hop City Barking Squirrel. Anyway, that’s where I’d planned to meet another old friend, someone I hadn’t seen since university. Nellie (who also knew her) joined us a little later and we got caught up. We then took her to Fieramosca where we were well entertained and, predictably, ate ridiculously well — I had the risotto special with prosciutto di parma, butternut squash and…something else that slips my mind, and our wine was some spectacular thing that I can’t remember.

Saturday featured beautiful weather, maybe some the last we’ll see this year, so I found an excuse to go for a walk. That excuse? Wine! Just a few bottles from the new Vintages release, nothing serious. Meanwhile Nellie was buying gifts that we took with us over to T-Bone’s place, to meet the new addition to their family, drink their wine and share some Indian food.

Sunday started with one of my favourite things (breakfast at Hank’s) and just got better from there.

Good weekend. Quiet, but good.

Project FiftyBrew status: project cancelled

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Over a year ago I set out to drink what BeerAdvocate determined to be the fifty best beers made in Canada, labeling the endeavor Project FiftyBrew. Within six months I’d tackled nearly all of them, with only two remaining: The Wellington Iron Duke and the Alley Kat Full Moon Pale Ale. The Iron Duke was no problem; six-packs are available at any number of beer stores near me. But the Full Moon would be trickier. First, Alley Kat is made in Alberta and is hard to find here, even at places like Volo where they have limited stock and sell out quickly. Second, the Full Moon is an older beer, one Alley Kat might not even produce anymore. I couldn’t bear the thought of drinking #49 knowing I could never have #50, so I’ve put off buying the Iron Duke.

I’d still love to finish off the list some day, so if any Western Canadian readers come across a bottle of Alley Kat Full Moon Pale Ale, could you please wrap it up and mail it to me? Otherwise, I’ll admit defeat and call off the project.

Still, even if that officially ends the journey, I’m pretty happy with the 31 new beers that I probably never would have tried had I not given myself this little challenge. Thanks beer, for all you do!

That settles it, we need a bigger place

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Yup, I know we just got back from a 3-week trip and our to-do list is still blazing out of control, but the hell with it…we felt like driving down to Niagara and stocking up on wine for the fall and winter. The weather gods were certainly with us — it was a beautiful, sunny fall weekend. We hit nine (!) wineries on Saturday and had an amazing lunch at Stone Road Grille as well as dinner at On The Twenty, across the street from the Inn On The Twenty in Jordan where we stayed. The soup we had at the former and the duck at the latter were among the best things I’ve eaten all year.

On Sunday we had a bit of a stroll on the Twenty Valley Trail, and then visited seven more wineries, including Vineland Estates — where we ate yet another spectacular meal. After pillaging the region for all it was worth we drove home, dropped the car and produced the final tally:

  • Calamus 2009 Gewurztraminer
  • Calamus 2010 Pinot Gris
  • Cave Spring 2008 CSV Riesling
  • Creekside 2007 Shiraz
  • Creekside 2007 Laura’s Red
  • Featherstone 2010 Four Feathers
  • Flat Rock 2008 Chardonnay
  • Hidden Bench 2008 Felseck Vineyard Chardonnay
  • Hidden Bench 2009 Nuit Blanche
  • Kacaba 2008 Cabernet Franc
  • Kacaba 2008 Meritage
  • Lailey 2008 Cabernet
  • Lailey 2008 Old Vines Chardonnay
  • Le Clos Jordanne 2009 Village Reserve Pinot Noir (x2)
  • Le Clos Jordanne 2009 Le Clos Vineyard Pinot Noir
  • Le Clos Jordanne 2009 Claystone Terrace Chardonnay
  • Le Clos Jordanne 2009 Village Reserve Chardonnay (x2)
  • Malivoire 2007 Moira Pinot Noir
  • Malivoire 2010 Pinot Gris
  • Megalomaniac 2008 Bravado Cabernet Sauvignon (x2)
  • Southbrook 2008 Triomphe Cabernet Sauvignon
  • Southbrook 2004 Poetica Chardonnay
  • Staff 2009 Cabernet Merlot
  • Staff 2008 Riesling
  • Stratus 2008 Voignier
  • Stratus 2008 Sauvignon Blanc
  • Stratus 2006 White
  • Stratus 2007 White
  • Stratus 2010 Red Ice Wine
  • Thirty Bench 2008 Cabernet Franc (x3)
  • Twenty Twenty Seven Cellars 2009 Queenston Road Pinot Noir
  • Vineland Estates 2010 Pinot Meunier
  • Vineland Estates 2008 Pinot Blanc

We had two purposes on this trip: stock up for the winter, but also try some places for the first time. Calamus, Creekside, Featherstone/2027, Kacaba, Lailey, Malivoire, Staff and Vineland Estates were all first-time visits for us. Flat Rock and Megalomaniac were more proximity plays since we had to drive right past them to get to others on our list and we knew each had wines we wanted to pick up. Hidden Bench, Jackson-Triggs (for the Clos Jordanne), Southbrook, Stratus and Thirty Bench are practically must-hits whenever we’re in the area. And, in case you’re wondering, Cave Spring only happened because it’s the house winery at Inn On The Twenty and we felt bad leaving without one.

I’d classify most of the new places as good, not great. Only Kacaba really wowed us…their reds were terrific, and very reasonably priced. And it wasn’t even in our original plans for this weekend — several people responded to my tweet announcing our agenda, telling us not going to Kacaba would be a miss. They were right, and we left with two bottles. And there may be a case in our future. I should also point out that we didn’t spend nearly enough time at Vineland tasting their wine; we just tried three in the few minutes before our lunch reservation, but liked two of them enough to buy bottles, so more investigation is probably warranted.

And now, the classic follow-up problem…where do we put all this freaking wine?!?

Day 18: One for the road

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Well, here we were with a day with no plans. Nothing we had to do but pack before we left the next day. We had a whole day in Sydney, one of the world’s great cities, to do whatever we wanted. So what would we do? What could we do?

Eat and drink more stuff, naturally.

The brother dropped me off at the Bourke Street Bakery to pick up some tasty breakfast. I walked home enjoying the sunshine (actual sunshine!) and woke up Nellie. We decided to do a little shopping (Nellie bought a new bag) and then hit up the one last beer place on our list: the King Street Brewhouse.

We enjoyed a few pints on a beautiful sunny afternoon by the water…which, I think, is how all last days in Sydney should be spent. I did have to fight off a few seagulls (and one managed to nick a fry even so) to protect our lunch…our last wildlife encounter.

We stopped for one more pint at the Redoak, then jumped a train home and got our bags packed. We enjoyed our last afternoon and evening at home with the brother, eating a nice meal in the back yard, drinking wine from the Margaret River, chasing away feline interlopers, looking up at the stars and listening to something rather substantial creep stealthily along the fence.

Boom. Australia. That happened.

Day 16 & 17: …le déluge

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Rainy. Windy. Grey. Nothing doing this day except to relax.

We considered a swim in the sea, but it was a little too rough. Pretty, but rough. We settled for wading along the edge of the surf.

We even went for a dip in the pool; everyone thought we were nuts, but wet is wet, and we might as well get a swim in. Apart from that all we did was drink wine on our deck, read, nap, write and hang out in the bar. It’s too bad we didn’t have nice weather, but it was probably good to have some forced relaxation. We needed it.

The following day was even greyer, rainier and windier…too wet to even sit on our deck. So: shuttle back to Cairns, beer at Blue Sky Brewery in Cairns airport, flight back to Sydney, et voila: home (kinda) again.

Day 15: Après moi…

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Slept in. Awoke to warm breezes and strange bird sounds. Ate breakfast here. No big deal.

Went for a bit of a hike down to the second beach, much rockier and wilder than the other. We climbed around the rocks, and saw tidal pools with crabs and cuttlefish scurrying about. We’d hoped to kayak around a bit that morning but the wind was too high.

Windy or not, we were still getting pretty damned warm and sweaty. By the time we walked back up the hill to the main lodge we knew we needed a dip to cool off, so into the ocean we went.

After a bit of relaxation back at the room, we thought…what the heck, another swim? Why not, right? This time we went to the pool just up the hill, sprawled out and read for a bit, and then had a swim. Not a bad venue either.

After drying off from that excursion we had a leisurely lunch of meats, fruits and cheeses on the front deck of our cabin. The weather was perfect…sunny and warm, but with shade and a cool breeze to keep things bearable.

Still, it did get quite warm by the afternoon so we turned to the water once more, this time opting for a smaller, shadier pool near the beach. It was deserted, and incredibly refreshing.

The rest of our afternoon was spent sitting on our balcony, cleaning sand from our feet, drinking wine, enjoying the views, getting ready for dinner and listening to bush turkeys scratch around in the scrub below. That evening the plan was to take the shuttle into Port Douglas for dinner.

We walked around the town, which took about…oh, ten minutes. Not an enormous place, Port Douglas. We sat at Iron Bar and had a few schooners, listening to a great chattering flock of birds shriek from the trees at the oncoming night. We walked down Wharf Street and chose a spot on an empty patio. Just one glass of wine later the restaurant we were in, and practically the entire row of restaurants on the street, was overflowing.

For our part, we had dinner at Harrison’s, one of the nicer places on the strip. Our server (who was from Montreal!) was a little slow off the mark — we guessed that she was new — but the meal was wonderful. It accelerated a little toward the end as we had to dash to catch our shuttle back to Thala, though.

By this time the wind was really starting to pick up — it had blown several coconuts off the trees and on to the roof over us during dinner — and spoiled our plans for one last swim when we got back to the lodge. Whatever, though…there was no way around the fact that we’d just had a vacation day for the ages.

Day 14: bienvenue a la jungle

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We got up early, but we had a very good reason: we were flying to Cairns to stay at Thala Beach Lodge. We’d decided to build some downtime into our schedule, and booked in at this quiet lodge near Port Douglas.

It was quite unlike the other very beach-y, very tourist-y resorts we passed on the way up. In fact, someone in our shuttle (bound for one of those beach-y, tourist-y places) sniffed, “It’s a bit jungly, innit?” as we pulled up.

We had lunch in the restaurant and a drink in the bar while we waited for our cabin to be prepped. This, by the way, is the view from the bar:

By the time we got to our cabin I was pretty much dying from the heat. It was practically tropical here, and I was still dressed in the jeans and shirt I put on in Sydney that morning. Once we got into some cooler clothes we headed down to the beach. Our cabin was a few minutes’ walk up a hill from the beach, but what it lacked in sandy nearness it made up in convenience of getting to the main lodge. Not to mention the view:

Not that the beach wasn’t worth the walk. We got to see lots of lizards on the way down. We also saw lots of animals on the beach: tiny molluscs of some kind that would wash in on the surf and immediately bury themselves in the sand. We could see it happening as we walked up and down the beach (during which time Nellie suffered another soaker). What a beach it was too…just incredible.

We walked back up to the cabin; I stayed in and cooled down while Nellie checked out the pool. I wasn’t good looking enough to hang out at that pool. It’s where all the resort’s hot people were hanging out. We did return to the sea for a quick swim at sundown which, it turns out, might not be the best time to swim there given the potential for sharks and saltwater crocodiles. But man, if you could have seen that sunset, you would have swum out there too.

After the dip we watched a bit of the Rugby World Cup semifinal and went for dinner. Dinner was quite good, even if the starter showed up at the same time as the mains for some reason. No matter; the food was good, the wine was good, the setting was extraordinary and the walk home barely stretched our legs.

Now this was vacation.

Day 13: What's that glowing yellow thing in the sky?

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Finally, a warm sunny day in Sydney! Unbeknownst to us we were at the tail end of what would later be named the coldest first half of October in Sydney in 45 years. But on this day it was sunny, and we decided to bask.

We drove over to Mosman with the top down, in search of some breakfast. It took us a few tries to find a place still serving breakfast at noon, but we did, and it was excellent, and right on the beach. We went for a stroll down said beach afterwards, where Nellie once again got soaked by a wave. This was becoming a pattern.

We drove back home — still avec open-top — and chilled, just watching the new Blu-Ray Star Wars. Side note: George Lucas needs to stop fucking with his best shit. Han shot…simultaneously?

We had plans to meet up with some friends of the brother for dinner. We took the train down to King’s Cross to scoff at the ridiculousness, then hit the Old Fitzroy for pre-dinner drinks. Their music selection led me to opine as to the best American (classic) rock band ever. I put forward CCR; others disagreed. Much debate ensued. Good beer + music geekery? It was uncertain I’d ever leave.

But leave we did, for dinner at Cafe DOV. We met up with the brother’s friends, discovered the secret path to the washroom, and nearly broke a camera. My dinner was good; everyone else’s was — reportedly — fantastic. Dessert was superb, though I can’t for the life of me remember what it was. Note to self: write these things down. Another of the brother’s friends joined us late, and came with us when we returned to the Old Fitzroy rather than be guestlisted into what seemed an extraordinarily douchey club. Even the pub had gotten quite out of hand by this point — Aussies like to dress up for parties apparently, even if they’re offensive…we saw a Hitler and an Arab suicide bomber — so we had just the one and buggered off home to pack for the next morning’s flight.

Day 12: Tea party & pork

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I really thought my calves would be better the next today. Man, was I wrong. I think they got worse. I was stepping rather gingerly.

My brother had arranged for a harbour cruise thingy, so we went back to Circular Quay and met our ride. The water was pretty choppy and we weren’t sure how well we’d fare, but everything turned out fine. In any case we were only headed to Goat Island, right there in the harbour, for a bit of history. It was fairly interesting, but the poor tour company employee’s routine was marred by the unexpected appearance of the Kids Crazy Island Tea Party. Seriously. It was hilarious and awful at the same time. Here he was trying to recount the interesting and oft-bloody history of 19-century Sydney while standing in front of the Lindt Teddy Bear’s Picnic. He did his best but you could tell he was getting pissed off.

After leaving the island the boat went on a longer ride around the harbour. The rest of the group sat inside and listened to trivia; Nellie and I walked out to the front of the ship, stood on the bow and enjoyed the sights. It was grey and a little cool outside, but we loved it. It felt like we were in Halifax for a minute. Except for a few key landmarks.

We went back home, got changed, then jumped back on the train downtown to stake out a spot at Porteno. It’s a very popular spot in Surry Hills. How popular? Well, we got there ten minutes before it opened and we were about twentieth in line to get in. Because our entire party wasn’t there we waited upstairs in the bar. Nellie had single malt; I had a pork slider and some kind of delicious bourbon, vermouth and smoked maple syrup concoction. The rest of the party showed up and downstairs we went. We didn’t bother with anything fancy: just two giant plates of slow-roasted meat and some wine to go with it. Us: pork. Them: lamb. It was SOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOOOD. The place was very cool too…very Spanish/South American vibe.

We left, stopped at a drive-through beer store (seriously!) and somehow, once home, drank another four bottles of wine between us. What a day.