Wine tasting in Mudgee

The day began bright and beautiful, like almost every other day in Australia. We enjoyed our breakfasts in the hotel and Terry,our jovial guide, turned up right on time. He did seem a little suprised that there were four of us, but said that we would all fit in his four wheel drive. We climbed aboard and spent some minutes discussing the types of wine we liked. He then took us to our first vineyard which was closed, well these things happen, we headed off for Logan's, a major producer. This was a little way out of town , and was closed until the 2nd January. "Not to worry" said Terry, "I'll take you to a small independent producer." The sign on the gate said "Open" but there was no one at home, so our first three vineyards were all closed. Now it might be me, but if I was running a wine tour I think I might have checked up which vineyards were open. However, Terry was a likeable chap and it was easy to forgive him. Our fourth vineyard, an organic one was open, but only just, the lady in charge was putting up the open sign when we arrived. The place looked like a venue for a jumble sale , but the proprietor was very friendly and we tasted six organic wines and some olive oil. We did buy some oil and some dried apricots but not the wine.
Our next port of call was a vineyard on the other side of town, which had about thirty bottles out to try. I had learnt from our last wine tasting tour that this is almost an impossible task, and left at least 20 out.
Several of the wines were very passable and Zoe ended up buying some.
Onto our third vineyard and one which specialised in Mediterranean grapes, Ian,our host,was very interesting and we tasted Tempranillo , Garnacha, Touriga, several whites and a port. By now we were all dying for some food, having had a successful morning of wine tasting.
So we went off to another vineyard , where David, the proprietor, proved very amiable and had spent several years making wine in Europe. Luckily his wife is quite a good chef and we had a grazing board, sausage rolls, frittata, olives and baked ricotta with bread. This filled the gap but was not enough to sustain us so we ordered another one. This vineyards tasting came with lunch and consisted of four flights of wine, four glasses in each flight, one of which a Petit Verdot, he opened specially for us, and which was a really good wine too. As we paid he very kindly opened for Zoe, who was making  a substantial purchase, a bottle of his Zinfandel at $100 a bottle, which was the best wine I tasted all day.
After lunch was over, and all suitably refreshed we went to another vineyard, where we tried some more wines but this time I tried to concentrate only on the wines that Terry recommended. However, I am fairly sure we didn't buy anything. There was avery interesting old wine cellar which was worth looking around.
And so off to another vineyard, the oldest in Mudgee, by now I honestly felt that my palate had gone. However, we tried a few more wines and liked their Durif , of which we bought three . By my reckoning I had now tasted more than 30 wines, which I thought was enough for one day. I had learnt from our tour of the Hunter region to take lots of water with it and to tip out those I didn't like on first taste, but even then it was very wearing. Was it over? No, we headed off to a cheese and wine place, where luckily we tasted cheeses first, and then another four or five wines. We didn't buy any.
We returned to our hotel with our purchases of essential supplies and went to our apartment. Having sat in the cool for a while I felt I had to go for a doze before dinner which I did for about an hour.
We had a really lovely meal in the evening before all of us retired to bed early.
Sometimes, the best present you can give someone is a memory and memories will abound from this exceptional day. It was the very best of presents and Rosemarie and I really enjoyed it, so thank you very much David and Zoe and Emma and Pete, it was a day which will stay long in our memories.