Brown Brothers wine tasting

Two wine tastings this month! This time, the esteemed Brown Brothers were in town from Australia for a short window of time and so we were lucky enough to try their wines on our home turf. Our host for the evening was the loquacious Andrew Harris, Wine Ambassador for Brown Brothers. What's a wine ambassador? Basically, it means he's done a little bit of everything to do with wine and knows a lot about it!

The evening began with a presentation about the company itself and we were introduced to the four generations of Browns who have owned and operated the winery for the past 125 years in Milawa, about two hours north of Melbourne, Victoria. Innovation is the name of the game with Brown Brothers, who have constantly developed and experimented with different methods and styles of wine making throughout their history, producing multiple ranges across their various vineyards. Their business model involves setting up cellar doors in collaboration with other local businesses and constantly looking for new ways to experiment with wine. It works!

We got to taste nine samples during the evening. Some were variations on a theme and several were additions to our wine list.

Yes yes yes!

• 2015 Moscato. My favourite wine of the evening came in several different iterations. Moscato is to Australia what sauvignon blanc is to New Zealand wine. Its very sharp, fresh and crisp flavour actually only has a 5% alcohol count as less sugar is extracted during the fermenting process. I bought a bottle of this for our wine rack.
• 2015 Moscato Rosa. Similar to the plain moscato, this rosa has a pale pink colour while retaining a similar palette. Very light and refreshing with 7% low alcohol content.
• 2014 Cienna. I had to get my head around several ideas to enjoy this wine: it's a sparkling, sweet red that is served chilled and its name was constantly mispronounced. (Apparently the spelling makes it different from Italian town of Siena, meaning they can get away with IP issues, even Brown Brothers say it the same way ... but this spelling should mean it's pronounced chi-en-na.) Once I got past all this, I really liked the Cienna and bought a bottle for my family to enjoy on Mothers' Day. We had the same conversation about pronunciation (can't argue with an Italian mama), that it could be sparkling, sweet, red and chilled ... a winner with the family.

Maybe

• NV  Prosecco. I do like a good prosecco but couldn't warm to this one. It was light, clean and crisp but a tad too sweet.
• NV Sparkling  Moscato Rosa. Another variation on the moscato theme, this sparling wine had a very crisp, fresh flavour and a litle pink colour. 

No

• 2014 Devil's Corner Pinot Noir. A lovely mid-red colour but the flavour way too rugged for me.
• 2015 Devil's Corner Pinot Grigio. One word came to mind for this Tasmanian wine: asparagus.
• 2014 18 Eighty Nine Shiraz. A smooth finish and a lovely mid-red colour, this shiraz spent 14 months on French and American oak, with 10% new oak.
• 2009 Patricia Shiraz. I know it sounds wrong to say that I didn't like the best quality wine of the evening produced under their esteem flagship label, but I'm still not a shiraz drinker. A much smoother finish than the 18 Eighty Nine shiraz but still far too rich and heavy for me.

Anzac biscuits

ANZAC Day is fast approaching. 25 April is the day that New Zealand and Australia commemorates those who died in the service of their country and to honour returned servicemen and women. 25 April is the anniversary of the landing of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps at Gallipoli in 1915. On the first anniversary of that landing services were held throughout the country in remembrance of the 2,721 New Zealand soldiers who died during the eight-month Gallipoli Campaign. Since 1916 ANZAC Day has evolved to the observance we know today.

Anzac biscuits

The baking of Anzac biscuits has evolved as one of the traditions associated with Anzac Day. One of the food items that women in New Zealand and Australia sent to soldiers during the First World War was a hard, long-keeping biscuit that could survive the journey by sea, and still remain edible. These were known as Soldiers' Biscuits, but after the Gallipoli landings in 1915, they became known as Anzac biscuits. Soldiers themselves may have made a similar form of biscuit from ingredients they had on hand: water, sugar, rolled oats and flour.

The traditional Anzac biscuit is hard and flat - ideal for dunking in tea and then eating. During the First World War, some soldiers used broken biscuits to make a form of porridge to add some variety to their diet.

To make my Anzac biscuits for this week's baking day, I used a traditional recipe. It is simple and great for kids to make - I've tried it with a few of my classes of 8-10 year olds.

Ingredients

• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup plain flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup dessicated coconut
• 125 g butter
• 1 tablespoon golden syrup
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 tablespoons boiling water

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Grease a biscuit tray.
3. Mix oats, flour, sugar and coconut together.
4. In a small saucepan over low heat, melt the syrup and butter together. Mix the baking soda and the boiling water and add to the melted butter and syrup.
5. Add butter mixture to the dry ingredients. Roll the mixture into small balls (about a dessertspoon in size) and place on greased biscuit tray, flattening slightly.
6. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. Makes approximately 30 biscuits.
   

Escape

Yesterday, we bought an Escape Pass. This allows entry to two theme parks over three days (a different franchise to Dreamworld). Both days started out the same way: cool and raining. I wasn’t too thrilled with either state, even after we stopped to buy cheap umbrellas. Rain and sun hit us sporadically over the next two days, quite different to the 32 degree heat we experienced during our first day on the Gold Coast.

Sea World
I really love Sea World in San Diego. (I should stop comparing, but I just can’t.) Sea World Gold Coast is a teensy tiny version of the real thing and probably takes about half a day to fully explore. Of course, we don’t have kids, so that could be part of the problem.

The underwater aquarium was great, and we shot a few movies. Here is a great one of a school of fish who constantly swam back and forth along the window from one end to another - it would make a great screen saver.



We also enjoyed watching a polar bear playing in the water with a stuffed toy:



The highlight of the day was the dolphin show, where five dolphins strutted their stuff and put on a fabulous display. If I had thought or known about it when planning our trip, I would have loved to book a session swimming with the dolphins; hopefully another time.

(BTW, we checked out Jupiter’s Casino tonight – finally! – and gave ourselves limits of $20 and 1 ½ hours each. After 20 minutes, we were ready to leave, with my sweetie blowing a full dollar on the 2c slot machines and me not finding the right change to do the same. Instead, we invested $2 each on a monorail ride and enjoyed overlooking a beautiful calm night in Broadbeach. We’re obviously not cut out for the gambling business, lol!)

Warner Brothers Movie World
We got to Movie World early, where my sweetie could be first in line for the Batwing Spaceshot and before most of the shops opened. Again, I found it really hard to not feel underwhelmed. (OK, I didn’t do so well with this today, but am trying to get over it.) The whole park is about the size of one ‘land’ in Disneyland or Universal Studios area. There are six rides (apart from the kiddies’ ones), and one was closed for refurbishment with another unavailable for part of the day. Being mostly speed/thrill rides, I found I had plenty of time to explore the whole park several times over. And over. Oh well. We enjoyed the Shrek 4D Adventure show, though.

Upon reflection, we think we did the theme parks in the wrong order. We’d recommend going to Sea World first, then Warner Brothers Movie World, finishing with Dream World. (We didn’t go to Wet 'N' Wild or Whitewater World, so can’t really comment.) And, most importantly, make sure you do the Gold Coast theme parks before hitting Anaheim/LA or Florida etc; it’s hard to not come away feeling underwhelmed.

Dracula's

Last night, we went to Dracula’s. Definitely worth the hype, cost, and time to book in advance, this show and dinner package was amazing. The current show is Beasts of Burlesque, featuring the weird wonders of circus life and freak shows. The costumes, makeup, comedy, and dancing are excellent.

The show takes place in two one-hour sections after a three course dinner. After a set entrée and choice of six mains, the highlight is, naturally, dessert: Death by Chocolate. There is constant table service and a great cocktail menu, with all of the waiting and bar staff also dressed up as Gothic freaks. The in-house trio played clever jazz arrangements of a whole range of music, and also joined the show later on. There was plenty of audience participation, and I’m just glad that we were sitting one table back from the centre catwalk, as that’s where most of the audience ‘victims’ were selected from. Hilarious!

If we’re back on the Gold Coast again, or in Melbourne, this is something we’d definitely go back to and also recommend to family and friends. Plan to make a whole night of it; this is 5+ hours of outstanding entertainment.

Tourists for a day

Today we were tourists, armed and ready with cameras, credit cards, and discount vouchers from travel guide books, but without the matching track suits, walk shorts and golf caps. ;-) We decided to knock off all the Surfer’s Paradise attractions in one go. First stop, though, was Pancakes in Paradise, especially for my sweetie, who is a pancake boy. $A8.95 for all you can eat pancakes and maple syrup and my sweetie was in paradise, managing to devour eight buttermilk pancakes before we moved on. My lemon and icing sugar crepes were divine, and I even manage to prise one of my sweetie’s buttermilk pancakes off his plate to try for myself.

We wandered around Surfer’s Paradise centre for a bit. There is a lot of construction work going on in and around the centre of this suburb, with luxury resorts as far as the eye can see and more on the way. It was quite overcast today and the cooler temperature was a welcome relief. We quickly popped into the Hard Rock Café to look around. There was a small range of memorabilia, with quite a few Australian artists (as expected), but nothing quite like the Melbourne or Los Angeles cafes I’d been to. We spent a couple of hours with someone trying to sell us luxury accommodation for the next 30 years in exchange for a ludicrous sum of money, all in the name of claiming a free week’s accommodation on the Gold Coast which we had ‘won’. (We’re still deciding what to do with this offer – it would be great to come back for another week.) No deal.

The highlight of our afternoon was Infinity, the home of optical illusions. The time sped by as we explored room after room of mirrored optical illusions, each time looking for the door to the next room. Very clever and lots of fun. Directly across the road is the Haunted House, run by Dracula’s. Five stories of scares and thrills and very clever special effects. The strange thing is that neither of us actually found it scary, even the Dare Doors, which were supposed to house the scariest features of all. Maybe we’re getting a bit too cynical (or technical?) in our old age?

A friend had recommended Cold Rock for ice cream. This is where you get to pick the flavours you want, add some ‘mix ins’ (which could be chocolates, confectionery, fruit, nuts, biscuits, or fudge), then watch the staff smash it all together on a ‘cold rock’ to make your very own flavour of ice cream. We tried English toffee and cookies ‘n cream ice cream with a Kit Kat and Tim Tam ... yum!

And, finally, we crossed over to the Wax Museum, the largest wax museum in the southern hemisphere. With memories of the now closed Movieland Wax Museum in Anaheim, I’d looked forward to this. Some of the characters were quite life-like; the others were less realistic. One of the models was one of three created by the famous Madame Toussaud of herself. We were surprised to be allowed to take photos in this area as we tried to overcome low lighting and glass panels. We then went down to the Chamber of Horrors, an historical tour comprising the only display of its kind and featuring human torture and cruelty through the ages, right up to modern day genocide. I found this quite disturbing. I contemplated leaving at several stages, all the while finding myself disgusted at the cruelty of humankind. Unbelievable.

We still haven’t made it to Jupiter’s Casino yet to gamble away our $20 limit. Maybe tomorrow?

Dreamworld

We spent yesterday at Dreamworld, one of several theme parks on the Gold Coast. Dreamworld is essentially a tiny replica of Disneyland, with a very similar layout and features. The rides all seemed to be short and sharp, which helped shorten queues.

My sweetie was having the time of his life going on one thrill ride after another. You may have guessed, but that’s not my thing at all. He was determined to get me on a roller coaster or three; I wasn’t having anything to do with those plans. I conceded with one that I thought didn’t look quite as bad (Mick Doohan’s Motocoaster), but it was. He thought it was hilarious that I didn’t enjoy it. At all. Still not funny, sweetie!

Here are some cute pics of the tiger cubs sleeping, taken by their trainer, shortly after the midday Tiger Island show.

I love this warning by the crocodile pool; very sound advice:


The heat slowed us down a bit today; it was kind of a relief to hear from people who have been here for a while that it was one of the hottest days they’ve had (32 degrees Celsius), but makes us wonder what the weather has in store for us during the next week. We checked out our hotel pool when we got back from Dreamworld and before heading out for dinner.

Something we find really strange about Burleigh Heads is how early shops, restaurants, and other food places close at night. Two nights in a row, we tried to get to an Internet café which says it closes at 9pm, but its doors were firmly shut at least an hour before then. We tried to eat at three different places around 8pm only to be told they were closing or closed, yet there were so many people around outside looking for places to go. Doesn’t seem to make much business sense in a tourist town.

We’re mapping our next week and have a few exciting things planned - a combination of theme parks, sight seeing, touristy stuff, shopping, and relaxing. Seeing as we’re only one block from Burleigh Beach, we figure we should walk down there and check it out sometime. A supermarket shop this morning should see us set up with breakfasts and lunches for our trip. We’re off to Pacific Fair for a bit of retail therapy shortly, but in the meantime it’s nice to be relaxing inside with the air conditioning pumped up.

Gold Coast

Yesterday, I achieved half of one of my ‘big’ goals. My sweetie and I are on Australia’s Gold Coast for a week, and so I have a new stamp on my passport! I guess this means I’ll be writing a travel blog for the next week, whenever I can get Internet access to upload each post. More likely, I’ll upload all my posts after the event, once I arrive back at home.

It’s been 18 years since I was last on the Gold Coast, and things have changed a fair bit. Firstly, there’s an airport; we used to have to fly into Brisbane and hop on a bus or train south for an hour or so. There are new buildings and apartment resorts everywhere, but it’s the palm trees, greenery, and warm evenings that I’m loving so far.

Queensland do not observe daylight savings, so we are three hours behind New Zealand time. We were amazed at how quickly and early it got dark last night. The upside, I guess, is that the sun came up incredibly early this morning and, since our body clocks are running on NZT, we were awake and ready to go from around 6am (9am NZT). Of course, nothing is open here yet ... I knew there was a reason why we are not morning people!

Our apartment has a pool in the shape of Australia ... not quite as tacky as it sounds, and we’re keen to check out Tasmania (the spa pool) tonight. We are staying in Burleigh Heads, about a block away from the beach and five beaches away from all the action in Surfer’s Paradise. We have a couple of activities planned and are starting to make bookings, but need to wait until the office opens and work out buses, tickets etc.

So, Café Chick and her sweetie are on holiday!