Austrian Food and Wine

A wine conesour I am not. But when Carole and Bob say "you have to taste this, it is the best we have ever had"... yes it was so smooth. I could get used to this.
The castle Schloss Seegau had a very nice white Chardoney reserve wine. We toured their celler. Huge barrels towerd over our heads. The front covers were carved with dates and pictures of the castle. The wine guy brought out various taste trials set on a old wine barrel table as the sun set throught the trees.
Next day we stopped at Peter Skoff's. Pulled in as the elder matron and her wet but happy black and white bird hunting dog greeted us at the door. usshered in she stopped a fussball game while her grandson asked if we wanted to sample the full 20 wines or a smaller assortment. I think I liked their gewirtstrameiner ( spelling). I was quite pleased I could walk a straight line back to the car.
The following day or so we were hiking through hill and dale when we happened across a gem. TRABOS! www.trabos.at - Beautiful flower arrangements from every window, door and nook. The owner was happily trimming some flowers when she stopped to recieve our admiring comments. A rose petal adorned her chest. She sent us on down through her vineyards on a hike to the netherlands. We returned for a late afternoon lunch and tour of their wine facility. Joseph Trabos started farming in 74 with 18 hecters. Mostly cows and 4 hecters of wine. in 87 he went full vineyard. Stainless steel fermenting towers crowd his work area. A bottler and crusher. He bottles 65,000 bottles a year. In a few days he will begin picking for grape juice. He hopes the next 2 weeks are sunny. Going to Hawaii would be a dream! Carole and Bob liked his Cuvee'Josef. I loved their "Kranachsalat" UMMMMMM lettus,tomatoes,cucumber,bell ppepper with thin strios of a white cheese and a turkey. A few bacon strips on top and a egg. Salad dressing is the wonderful pumpkin oil type vinegrette which this area is famous for. It is a emeral green in color.

Europe September

Yes the flight is a doosy. 4.5 hours to LAX. 5 more to DC. Then 6 hours to Munich. I arrived at 7am and was in bed by 11am. Slept until 6pm. Up briefly and back to sleep for the night. Margrit, who I met at the World Equestrian Games in Jerez Spain in 2002 drove down with her son Sascha from Hannover. Sept 2nd: Off we went to Austria's wine country. 4-5 hours of driving from Munchen. Through the alps via lots of tunnels. My peepers could not stay quite awake. Almost to the southern boarder with Slovenia. Green, Green, green is Austria. Rolling hills, grapes plunging down the hills. Corn and pumpkins in the flatter acerage. Rivers swollen wide, turbid and dark grey/clay colored. It is sweater,vest and jacket cool. Margrit did all the planning and had us at a very nice winery called Adam-Leilig. The predoment wine is white wine. They do raise some reds as well.