Bendigo, An Aussie Enigma

Its Bill reporting today. I have been meaning to check in with you all for a while now, but to be honest couldn't be bothered. But today I can. And I have a secret to share with you all . Its the region of Bendigo. Stephanie and I snuck away there over the Easter / Anzac holiday(This is the down under equivalent to memorial day). We had wanted to stay in the adjacent Heathcote region Stephanie has regaled you all with in her previous post. However, the more famous Heathcote area was booked out in what few accommodations we were able to locate. We ended up staying in a quaint family style gambling casino. It was like staying in a Holiday Inn near Reno Nevada or something, what with the slot machines and sports betting everywhere. But that's not why I am writing. I am not even going to tell you about the rich Chinese culture in Bendigo and its ties to the gold rush when Bendigo was briefly the richest town the world. I am going to tell you about our experience at the Bendigo wine festival. I know, who would have thought I would want to talk about wine, I even surprise myself sometimes.
On our final day of wine tasting it was Stephanie's turn to drive and I was the designated drinker. And so off we went to the Bendigo wine festival. It cost us a mere $25 each to taste over 100 wines. (as opposed to the $75 it costs for the privilege to attend the same type of festival in Santa Barbara.) We had to be in Melbourne later that day so our tie was limited and the wine was waiting. From the first sip to the last gulp I knew I had found my kind a place. Bendigo is known for producing big reds namely shiraz (syrah if you are from the northern hemisphere). Most of the wines I tasted were big. for all you non winos that means it has a lot of flavor, little subtlety, and all that wine talk about hints and notes of non wine related items becomes silly.
One winery called Rivergate especially caught my eye. It only had Shiraz but Rivergate does them well. I am no wine critic but these wines were to my liking. The 2005 was a big unfiltered very well defined grape flavor, but not your sweet table variety. I am talking about the grape this wine came from the syrah/shiraz grape. If you have never tired one, try it. It will help you understand the wine. And in my opinion a good wine should reflect the grapes it came from. But enough of this soap box.
We only had a couple of hours to taste and I took full advantage. The wine of Bendigo is not nearly as well recognized as those of its neighbor Heathcote or the likes of Barossa or Mclaren. This was a boon to us. The wines we liked were not grossly over priced out of our budget. I probably would have paid a bit more for some of them. Needless to say we left more than a little laden down with new purchases. More than we could hope to bring back to Sydney but fortunately we had some good company in Melbourne to share it with and what we didn't drink or bring back Nicole and Steve were good enough to let us store some in their home until the next time on of us passes through. I wonder if they have figured out where we have hidden it. I hope not.