Around the World in 80 Dinners - Bill Jamison [25]
A short drive brings us to the winery founded by and named for Peter Lehmann. From the fifth generation of a German immigrant family, he began his winemaking career at Yalumba at the age of seventeen and progressed to the top vintner’s job at Saltram thirteen years later. Crisis struck the Barossa in 1978, when the supply of grapes greatly exceeded the needs of wineries. Lehmann’s bosses ordered him to break standing agreements with vineyard owners, but he refused, knowing the farmers might face financial ruin from their unsold surplus. Instead, he formed a new company, named Masterson after the Damon Runyon character Sky Masterson, a gambler, and adopted the Queen of Clubs as the logo. Through the firm, he bought the grapes himself and started making his own wine, soon rechristened under his name. He gambled on an uptick in the fortunes of the Barossa and raked in a big pot, for himself and the whole valley.
At the cellar-door bar, we tell the lady in charge about our chance encounter with Peter this morning and his suggestion of the possibility of a tasting with Margaret. “Oh, yes,” she says. “Let me get her.” Margaret comes out and proposes that we join her in the private tasting room, where we can all sit down. The baroness, who has been widely quoted as stating that the Barossa was the original Garden of Eden, gives us her perspective on the valley. She says, “The terrain encompasses an incredible range of microclimates and soil types, conditions that promote a rich diversity in types of grapes that grow well. Our winery alone works with 190 growers and 900 patches of grapes, allowing the company to produce a variety of premium wines.” Margaret mentions that Peter jokes about how boring it would be to wake up each day and only be able to make Château Lafitte.
To illustrate the bounty, she grabs a few bottles to sample. First, she pours the 2004 Eden Valley Riesling, nimbly mineral in character. “Consider this as a base,” she says, opening another bottle, “and then try the 2001 vintage of the Reserve Riesling, a four-time winner of an award for the world’s best dry Riesling.”
Both of us sip in awe, with Cheryl finally breaking the silence. “It’s easily the best Riesling I’ve ever tasted. Just magnificent.”
“I know,” Margaret confidently concurs. “Take the rest of it back to your hotel for later.”
Next Margaret uncorks two vintages of Shiraz, the 2001 Eight Songs and the 1999 Stonewell, the former soft, rich, and ready to drink, the latter still young and brooding but well balanced and long in the finish. “The Stonewell has serious guts,” Bill says. “In a few years, it’s going to rival the finest of French Syrahs.”
Thanking Margaret as we leave for being such a charming and generous hostess, Bill asks, “Would you consider coming home with us to be our fairy godmother?”
“Sorry,” she declines. “I’ve got to cook Peter’s fish for dinner.”
What a day, we agree on the drive back to Adelaide. “Certainly the best of our trip so far,” Cheryl declares.
“I love the strong sense of community there and the easygoing way of life,” Bill says. “It’s a place I could live.” Just at that moment, he starts to change lanes and flicks on the windshield wipers once again. “As soon as they switch over to the right side of the road.”
Neither of us really grasped the vastness of Australia before we began planning our visit. In a week to ten days, we assumed naively, it should be possible to see Sydney, our main priority, and get a good glimpse of several other places, including maybe the Adelaide area, Melbourne, Tasmania, the Great Barrier Reef, and the Outback. Fat chance. The country is so huge it constitutes a continent, one of those miscellaneous facts from fourth-grade geography that our brains inconveniently misplaced.
In the end, Bill pushed to limit ourselves to Sydney and one other destination, so we didn’t waste half our time in planes and airports. For him, the natural choices for the second spot on a food adventure seemed to be Melbourne, a worldly city many Aussies