Stork's 4wd & Camping Adventures: Apple and Grape Festival Holiday - Feb/March 2024

Day 8: Saturday 2/3/24 - Stanthorpe Apple and Grape Festival

Part A

Up early, shower first up so we're nice fresh for our first big day of the festival. Cheese Kransky and tin spaghetti for breakfast, no toast due to the bread going mouldy because it's been as hot as the surface of the sun for days! Our tour leader Doreen - side note on Doreen: our mate Doreen was born and bred in Stanthorpe, her family owned an Apple farm, she even won Miss Lovely Legs back in 1976 or something like that. She was also the Apple and Grape Queen one year many moons ago when she was young 😆), right back to the story. Tour Leader Doreen said we were departing at 9.30am for wine tastings at Symphony Wines, followed by Ballendean Wines and finishing with Jester Hill Wines.

Off set the convey arriving perfectly at 10am to be the first for tastings at Symphony Hill Wines. We all filed into the tasting room and basically filled it up with 12 of us - we have a couple of Doreen's "other" mates who are staying in town tagging along.

I did pity the poor fellow doing the wine tastings, it was challenging to say the least but also very entertaining for all involved and I think he was having as much fun as we all were. At the end of all the tastings and purchases, he actually thanked us for making the start of his day really great. Interestingly, out the back in the factory they have these awesome terracotta urns with wine fermenting in them. With no barrel to influence the taste of the wine, it is apparently the purest form of wine and not to everyone's liking.

A lovely mural looms behind the urns, specially painted for them of Sophia Lorenz, Penelope Lopez and Gina Lollobrigida - very unique.

Now, these urns are handmade in Tuscany, Italy by a 91 year old man who is legally blind and makes them totally by feel. The Winery commissions him to make the urns for them and then ship them over to Australia. They also have a ceramic egg as they call it, made in France and shipped over.

Overall we found their reserve wines were quite nice and we joined the wine club to receive 6 whites and 6 reds twice a year. We also bought 6 mixed bottles of the ones we like to take on holidays with us.

Load 'em up and move 'em out, onwards to Ballendean Estate Wines now. Wouldn't believe it hey, bumped into my cousins husband at Ballendean Winery, he's also from Stanthorpe and he also was there with a mate for the Festival, while my cousin is attending a Wedding Expo as she's a Celebrant. Been ages since I've seen Laurel-Lea and Stuart, well didn't get to see Laurel-Lea 😋

Having a fun day wine tasting and it's like rent a crowd when we all arrive somewhere, we're quite loud and there's a lot of us - it's quite funny. Not sure what the Lady doing our wine tastings at Ballendean Estate made of us all, but she was kept busy back and forth along the bar making sure everyone was tasting what they wanted. They had some wonderful locally made small goods/condiments to browse through as well. I managed to find a tomato relish, black garlic paste, black truffle mustard, smoked garlic salt and black truffle and garlic salt. Also pick up a mustard for our neighbour Michelle for keeping an eye on our place while we're gone. Grabbed a couple of bottles of wine we enjoyed and a Mead as well.

Craig's big purchase (except it was free), was the pink pencil (he likes pink) we were using to make tasting notes - it's like having a child sometimes I tell you. 😆

Right, we took so long to get through these two wineries, some needed to head back to town so we could make the Grand Parade. Dropped our car back at camp and jumped in with Craig .5 and Kylie for the trip downtown. Grabbed some lunch from a food truck - Karaage Chicken and Japanese Curry, was really bloody yummy. Made our way up to the main street to find a spot in the shade to watch the Grand Parade.

The parade went for quite some time with comical figures walking around to entertain the crowds, Bagpipe bands a plenty, Festival floats, old cars and tractors, Fire Brigade Trucks, finishing of course with the Police car and all the time you had commentating going on to let you know what was what. You don't get to experience an old fashion Grand Parade that much these days. The temperature today was insanely hot, I felt sorry for the participants.