Thirteen vehicles gathered in the Bunnings Parafield car park at 9.00am ready for the drive to LiebichWein at Rowland Flat for the Club’s 40th Anniversary Port bottling. (Ralph and Terri joined us at Williamstown and John and Heather met the convoy at the winery.)
The convoy departed at 9.30am heading onto McIntyre Road, then onto the Golden Way and One Tree Hill Road.
The drive took us past Sampson Flat, where recent fires devastated much of the area. However, it was encouraging to see regrowth on many of the native trees along the way. We then turned on to Humbug Scrub Road and continued into Williamstown for a mandatory bakery and rest stop.
We headed out of town on the Springton Road and then left onto Wirra Wirra Road stopping at the Red Gums Picnic Area for morning tea. We chatted with a horsewoman there who
farewelled us as she left on her horse for an endurance ride.
We continued on the little used gravel road turning onto Trial Hill Road and then right into Steingarten Road and through the gates past Jacobs Creek Steingarten Vineyard, where we stopped to take in the spectacular views over the Barossa Valley and beyond. Sandy told us of her days planting and pruning the Steingarten vines – what a trooper!
As we drove down the hill towards the winery we were lucky to have a bird’s eye view of an aerobatic display by the Roulettes, who were performing at the Barossa Air Show in Rowland Flat and later, Chris Sperou doing amazing tricks with his little plane.
We arrived at LiebichWein about midday and gathered around the large trees by the cellar door ready for our picnic lunch and to be briefed by Janet Liebich on the bottling process and how to use the equipment.
Before long, teams were formed and the port was flowing into bottles which were capped, labelled and boxed. In what seemed like no time at all we had reached our quota! We then enjoyed a picnic lunch and socialising in the balmy autumn sunshine.
Many thanks to Ron and Janet Liebich for hosting the Club and providing their facilities to enable us to produce the 40th Anniversary bottles.
A big thank you to everyone from the Club who came along to support the event on the day and to everyone who purchased the commemorative bottles.
Jim and Lea