The Urban Nomad: June 2010

…. and our journey continues to a smaller boutique, family owned & operated winery – Yering Farm. At this point my brain was so full & unable to digest any of the information given. It was like bla bla bla to my ears. lol

I was so busy taking pictures outside the hayshed & surely missed a lot of infos and I don’t care.

#3
Vicky (if Im not mistaken.. that’s her name :P) busy introducing their product

#4
They have more fancy range in here, like fruity bubbles and rose sparkling champagne

#5

The story continues from making a fancy wine to the making of cork. Do you know that those cork were produced from 20 years old oak tree? That is the minimum years needed in order to achieve certain layer thickness before harvested into a cork stopper.
What I like about the process of this bottle stoppers is that, no trees are harmed by the process. Cork is harvested from living cork oak trees like wool is gathered from sheep! =) and it continue producing cork for an average of 150 years!

#6
Yea, I am pointing at legendary notorious Edward Ned Kelly wanted poster

#7
Holy mother of cork opener. Just pick one that suits your style.

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Feelin’ the green grass.

#9
Sometimes Malaysia do reminds me of autumn in Yarra Valley - Every time when I woke up to a cold breezy bright skies on Sunday morning =) only minus the colorful trees.

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Then we heading to the heart of Yarra Valley, home of Domaine Chandon, Australia – where Green Point sparkling and Green Point still wines are produced.

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Look at how beautiful the entrance is…

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This is Moet and Chandon Australia. So I wonder how beautiful the place is, back in France?

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…and we were welcome by a huge ass cork!

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Without wasting any more minutes, our tour guide started to tell us about the process of wine making. No! Im not going to elaborate any of the process of how wine/champagne is made. Go Google up for yourself. (the truth is - I didn’t pay attention to him at all.. hehe)

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Don’t be confused, this is how Australia season’s cycle. This is not UK or US.

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Wow, I don’t know that my Nikon d3000 can produce this picture. This is unprocessed y’all! *proud*

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Fermentation and bulk aging process.

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Malolactic fermentation was taken at this place where all wines which already passed its secondary fermentation stored into oak barrel to improve the taste of wine as well as maturing the wine.

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The origin of oak barrel (trees) also were taken into consideration in storing the processed wine. French oak are preferred since it will add more subtle flavor compared to American oak.

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Kindly click this picture to enlarge – if you care, so that you can continue reading on the final process of sparkling wine. I don’t care, cuz I ain’t consume any of it.

#21
more of bubble tasting which I wish they serve normal grape juice. =(

#22
Complimentary food platter with sickening beet root jam and parmesan cheese? OMG, yuck! I didn’t geddit.

#23
Just for the sake of photography. Then I passed my glass to someone who sit next to me. Hope she’s happy.

#24
Then I ran out to the outside, took more of gorgeous colorful scenery which definitely I can’t find it in Malaysia lah! Itu arak melambak kat KL daaa..

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I swear this rose is as big as your mama cup’s saucer!

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It was 4.30pm and we were finish with our tour.

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Head back to the hustle and bustle city, and I can’t wait! (cuz Im was so hungry, time for dinner!)

This post end abruptly here. Super boring lah!

I’m so wanna go to New york City and experience the Sex and The City myself! Thee hee.

If u plan your trip to Melbourne, I suggest you NOT to miss Yarra Valley! It is so beautiful, 8gb memory card won’t be able to hold those scenic shots you made in here! And for wine drinkers, I guarantee you will get tipsy as soon as you arrives in this beautiful valley.

#1
Yarra Valley – one of Australia’s most beautiful regions, located 50kms to the east Melbourne’s CBD, an hour drive, is the most beautiful place I ever been in my life so far. The place is so beautiful ‘til made me think that I am willing to marry a worker who work in this wineries valley if the wine estate owner doesn’t interested in me. LMAO. I want to stay, wake up from my sleep, eat, play, pee, shit and go back to sleep here!

#2
Believe me, I got 82452458634 photos of this valley, but I only can upload it up to 30-35 max pictures in my every post since one of my reader suggested me so, or else he unable to see all my gorgeously taken pictures due to heavy, slow downloads. See? I love comments and suggestion. I respond to them immediately and hope things will improve from time to time.

#3
More gorgeous scenic photos will be uploaded in my 2nd post ya. So lemme brag more in this one.
It was a perfect day, everything so bright and beautiful, the sky, the trees, the grass and myself included! lol.

We bought a winery tour at AU98 and it worth my every single dollars even though Im unable to drink it, but to me it’s not all about drinking and tasting, but to be there – a home of high quality grapes being processed for those people who never really appreciate it, but only know to pop out the cork, gulp it down over some flirty conversations and feeling all classy. Boo!

#4
This day tour (9am - 5pm) consists of 4 stops (Yering Station, Rochford, Yering farm and House of Domaine Chandon) + 01 lunch. You’ll be given a lunch menu inside the tour van so that the tour guide can pre order once u decided what’s for lunch.

Our tour guide was very entertaining (not to mention superbly informative) he made us laughed throughout the tour.

#6
Since our tour all about grapes and wines, so we did not make a stop at any of fruit’s farm =(

#7
Our 1st top is Yering station, where I got my very 1st knowledge about the types of wine and history of it.

#9
Here you also can find home product at special price (minus shipping, tax and other charges just to bring them into your home country)

#10
Range of sauce, syrup, oil and many other cooking ingredients which are freshly made from grapes. Non alcohol, but grape based. Well, I couldn’t think of anything to cook with grapes flavor in it except jelly and drinks.. so I didn’t buy any of this.

#11
…and some other homegrown, fresh local product for u to take a bite, not free, mind u. haha

#12
and so the lesson begins. Gosh I forgot his name since this was taken 2 months ago! But he telling us the history and the making of chardonnay, green skinned grapes used to make white wine. He taught us from the very basic of holding the tulip glass, why need to twirl the wine, smell it and using of tongue parts to identify various taste of flavor base.

as

#13
This is the wrong way of holding the glass, cuz u will warm the wine & change its taste.

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and this is the right way. U need to twirl it sometimes in order to break more molecule and make it tastier? Idk.

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and he explain us more part on pinot noir – a dark purple skinned grapes which used to make red wine.

“the most romantic of wines, with so voluptuous a perfume, so sweet an edge, and so powerful a punch that, like falling in love, they make the blood run hot and the soul wax embarrassingly poetic” ~ Joel Fleischman, Vanity Fair.

#16
“Sex in a glass” ~ Master Sommelier Madeline Triffon
I don;t know how much sex in that glass, but I believed those 2 tour guides wondering why I keep pouring out ~~the sex~~ the wine into the bucket in front of me. He might think Im pregnant. hahaha. I did the smell and twirl thing, I listened to every explanation minus the tasting. Some of u might say that Im that stupid wasting my AU98 by refuse to taste it, well there are lots of other things I can enjoy besides tasting the wine. My principle - you had nothing to argue about it.

I remember in my trip to HongKong, where I refused to enjoy (and being so careful) about so called heaven delicacies which is made by “pork or not” but then getting mocked by my travel partner “ is that what you called real food?” when I went for McDonalds egg burger. I mean, where is her sensitivity towards other’s belief and principle? Does she know that people in this world have millions dissimilarity towards stuffs and about, and when she enjoy eating pork and fucking all white men around the world, doesn't mean others have to do it too just because her throat and clits says “ahhh so good”?

Try to avoid this type of people at all cost.

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mucking around before proceed to our next stop.

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Classic pretentious posing skill. Pointing at vacant space with no reason. Just for the sake of photography indeed.

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With Harry. Now I realized, we didn’t took any picture with 3 of us in it.. at all!!!

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me at my smallest eyes.

#22
even bunga lalang at Yarra Valley is extra beautiful..

#23
Here we are at Rochford estate, the place where we stopped for lunch and more and more wine tasting.. adeh…

#24
But lucky they did provide plain water on the table so I enjoyed drinking it while camwhoring.

#25
Seriously, I don’t understand how people can drink it when the smell is so similar to a cat pee. I was so hungry and waiting for Rochford staff finish her story about Rochford’s wine.