A typical afternoon with friends in the Wine Country

When we bought the vineyard, I set about learning about wine and the region, by meeting the neighbors and sampling the products they make.
Very quickly I developed a taste for different wine styles and sampled enough of the local product to know who makes the best "fruitcake in a bottle" and when to buy the best vintages.

Each day I would pass 25 cellar doors and an Hotel and a bottle shop to get to and from work.

So sometimes it would be a quiet beer in the pub after work. Other days it would be a visit to a couple of wineries for a sample and a bottle to drink on the verandah overlooking the vineyard at the cellar door.

Masons was a particularly pleasant Tuscan style establishment , the coffee and delicious cakes, cheese platters to be enjoyed sitting outside overlooking the view of the vineyard and the rolling hills beyond, then there is the fire place and the cozy atmosphere and I haven't even started to talk about the wine!

Some days were a bottle or two of white wine shared with my girlfriend under the Apricot trees in the orchard were we would laugh and cry and generally get untidy, and the children would cook the evening meal and look after us all the while shaking their heads at our behavior.

They were fun filled silly afternoons, where we were safe and carefree. I highly recommend visiting a wine growing region to let your hair down, I’ve been fortunate enough to have lived this carefree existence, fortunate because I learnt the lesson of moderation but it was a costly exercise.
Costly because boutique wines are expensive, and I became carried away with the experience.