Brunswick and Beyond

Hi there all our regular bloggers and any others we are picking up along the way. I hope you are finding our travel log interesting and varied enough to keep on following our Vin Blanc adventures. We have returned to our sleepy little vinyard base in Mia Mia out along the Burke and Wills track, gee but it's good to be back home. Vin's friend Barbara has been dragged along with us from Melbourne to see a bit of the outback. We drove back from the city after the Brunswick Music Festival. Vin was playing to a packed house at the Mechanics Institute on Sydney Road. It's a very lively area and the festival goes on for about 10 days. The Festival is run by a Scottish exile who a few of you might know called John McAuslan. Vin was pleased to see his old frinds, Hugh McEwan and Eric and Sue Purdy who he's known for many years, Eric nearly strangled a venue organiser in 1972 when he cut short one of Vin's sets. Vin's set started at 9.40 and it was well after 1130pm when he got off stage, he was brilliant. I'm amazed at how well he copes with different audiences and changes his set to suit each occasion. He has a not repeated any of his sets since we arrived in Australia, everyone has been different and unique to the venue. On our way to Brunswick, we managed to call in and visit John Bevis, John is a great Australian Songwriter, having written a number of outstanding songs in his time including The New Road which is a classic. Martyn Wyndham-Read has recorded this song and number of his other songs and had told me a lot about John before I came out here. It was pleasure to meet him and he was delighted that Vin had made the time to call in to see him. We had decided to drive back home after the gig because we had a concert at the Burke and Wills Winery the following afternoon. Everyone had warned us to expect a rough trip and warned us not to go above 60 km per hour because of the Kangaroo's who have a habit of jumping in front of cars and writing them off. We we're on tenderhooks for most of the journey but all we saw were two rabbits sitting at the side of the road eating leaves! It's grape picking time at Rowanston and John and Marilyn are picking the grapes for next years Rowanston on the Track Sparkling White, which is as good an Australian Champagne as you are ever likely to taste and would give many a French bubbly a run for their money.
Barbara and I joined the grape pickers this morning to speed up the harvest and both managed to add some flavour to next years vintage by cutting our fingers, I might stick to drinking the vintage in future. Our fellow grape pickers are a cheerful lot and great company as we worked our way along the vines, well at least until lunchtime, when we both manged to find important jobs that needed doing. It's hard work on these smaller vineyards but easy to see how satisfying a life style it is. It's been a beautiful day here cloudless blue skies, light breeze, perfect in every way. John has reliably informed me that Riesling is going make a comeback and having tasted several bottles of his award winning vintage I can confirm that it's well worth drinking, hic!