Tom Pepinsky

Author: tompepinsky

  • Canberra con't

    EP and I (JMP) went on a little adventure to downtown Canberra today to look around.  Not that it’s really much of an adventure but I find driving on the other side of the road a little hair raising.  There is a nice pedestrian zone in the City Centre and we had fun roaming around for a while.  TP asked if it reminded me of our pedestrian zone in Ithaca and my response was yes, except they have nice shops and restaurants and there were actually lots of people there.  There is a small outdoor skating rink for the month of July and EP enjoyed watching the people glide around.  I also scoped out a few cafes and Asian restaurants that look like fun but we’ll have to see if they are toddler friendly.

    Yesterday EP and I visited the National Museum of Australia, a beautiful, free museum that is a 3 minute drive from our place.  I have a feeling we’ll be spending lots of time there, especially on windy, rainy days.  It was actually very interesting and I’m looking forward to going back with TP so we can trade off chasing EP and actually looking at the exhibits.  From my quick glances around I was struck by just how new everything was.  Their idea of artifacts included old farm equipment and clothes from the 1800’s.  To be fair, there was a large section dedicated to the Aboriginals which did feature some ancient artifacts, but overall the museum just didn’t seem that historical.  It was however a lovely place to chase a toddler and I hope to get to examine the exhibits more in depth one of these days.

  • Shiraz Viognier

    When JMP and I were in Australia five years ago, we had a good time sampling Australian wines. One stood out above the rest, though. While out for dinner at a little restaurant in Airlie Beach, we were intrigued to find a blend of Shiraz and Viognier on the menu. We found this peculiar because shiraz is a red wine grape, but viognier is a white wine grape. (It turns out that this blend is not actually that peculiar, but is in fact traditional among some Rhone Valley wines.) We ordered the bottle that we saw, and we were stunned at how tasty it was. It was the single most memorable wine we have ever tasted at a restaurant.

    We remember everything about that meal. The location, the date, what I ordered (grilled lamb over couscous), what JMP ordered (scallops with roe in a cream sauce). We just can’t remember who produced that wine. We of course were afraid that we’d forget so we wrote it down, but among all of our paper from that trip we managed to lose the slip of paper on which we’d written it.

    So on this trip our mission is to find that wine. Unfortunately, shiraz viognier blends are a bit of a fad right now. As good detectives, we have some leads, though.

    1. We were poor grad students when we were here last, so we know that we couldn’t have ordered a wine that cost more than $50 at a restaurant (even on our honeymoon). So figure it’s probably no more than $35 retail, and probably less.
    2. We’ve tried the Yalumba and D’Arenberg shiraz viogniers in the U.S., and we know it’s not one of those.
    3. We have a hunch that it was not a South Australian wine, which if true would narrow things down considerably.

    Our mission has the nice side effect of requiring us to taste lots of tasty wines, so watch this space for our findings.