Yesterday we were in Adelaide, Australia. An 11 plus hour day. Adelaide is a beautiful city, the fourth largest in Australia after Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. There are big parks, beautiful trees, wide boulevards, great shopping and an over abundance of great restaurants of every kind.
About one-third of the city is Asian, there is a really nice Chinatown, and had as good a dim sum lunch as I have ever had at a great place called Star House. Lunch was so good that all I had for dinner was iced coffee in our cabin so I could take my pills.
Again we lucked out with a private driver/guide. I found Amanda on the internet just a few days ago. She retired no deposit and her charges were very reasonable. Many guides practically require that I be fingerprinted. Almost never have I hired anyone in less than an hour. I called this lady, told her I want a driver/guide for the whole day, gave her the date, she quoted a price I approved and she said, ”I can do that," and there she was with a comfortable van, with internet and off we went.
We went to two very good wineries for tastings and I bought some very good premium wines. One glitch that works out. Most wine drinkers, if asked to name the most famous Australian wine, will name Penfolds. Their wines may be the most expensive of any wines the country. The top red wine sells for $920 per bottle.
Most wine tastings in Australia, depending on the quality of the wines and the number of wines tasted range in cost between $25 and $50. One can taste wines at Penfolds in that price range, but if you want to taste their six best wines, they charge $120 per person. That includes 2 good Chardonnays, and Cabernet and three Shiraz.
The Chardonnay was either $125 or $200. We thought the less expensive was better and bought a couple of bottles. We also bought a great bottle of a different wine that was very expensive Not one of the red wines was ready to drink it was not even close. We did not even drink more than a sip of the Shiraz that cost $920.
I complained, nice to the manager saying I thought it was unfair to charge us $240 to taste wines that not drinkable in our lifetime at least. We were to it would still be drinkable in 2060. I asked if he thought I would still be around at age 120 to enjoy this wine. The manager removed the $240 charge and then gave us a discount on what we did buy. I think he may put a disclaimer on the wine list to the effect that “these wines are too young to drink”.
Today we are on Kangaroo Island. Whether we get off the ship remains to be seen. I need a rest.
Have no idea of what happened in the world except another friend and colleague died yesterday. Don Flexner, a truly great lawyers and a gentleman’s gentleman died. Our condolences go to Lynne and the rest of Don’s family.
See you tomorrow. At least that is my plan.
Go Ukraine
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