A Day in the Wine Country

Well, I went to LAW Review yesterday, a monthly outing held by the American Women's Club of Perth. I originally didn't sign up for it because it sounded boring (no offense to all my attorney friends!) but then found out it is not a lecture on the local statutes. LAW stands for Lunch And Wine!

My new friend, Veronica, drove me and Allie to the Twisted Vine Vineyards in the Swan Valley. I was supposed to navigate so we took a few wrong turns. You can't expect a Colorado native to know directions with no mountains! : ) We were still the first to arrive since everyone else got a little lost too.

Another small world story. Allie just graduated college in SC and is living with her boyfriend, who is working here. Her best friend from her hometown, New Orleans, is Veronica's friend's daughter so that's how they met. Veronica knows everyone. Her husband works for the Italian embassy so they've lived in New York, New Orleans, Greece, Australia, England, Italy and probably other places she hasn't mentioned yet. She's British but belongs to the club anyway because it's such a fun group of women. Anyway, I digress as usual!

The area reminds me of Tuscany with rolling hills and vineyards everywhere. It seems like there are hundreds of them but there are probably about a hundred. This vineyard is owned by a guy from Christmas Island and his wife. He was a diver who needed to find a new job as I guess diving regularly is very hard on the body. I didn't try any of the wines but the rest of the group seemed to like them.

Then we had lunch and it was simple but good. Our end of the table split a couple of platters - an antipasto platter with cheeses, meats, nuts, dried fruits, crackers and salad and an Asian one with lots of treats like Samosas, prawn toasts, eggrolls, and the like. My favorite thing was moneybags (guess George is rubbing off!), shrimp wrapped with marinated vegetable and rice noodle in a little wonton unit that resembles a money bag.



Here is a photo of the group. Most of these women are married to oil or mining executives and have lived all over the world. A few married Aussies and stayed here instead of living in the US. We also have Linda, our token Canadian - just kidding, eh?

I plan to go back to explore that area and to drag George along next time. It's an easy train ride from here. We stopped for strawberries at a farm on the way home and only made one wrong turn.