Wednesday 9 May 2012

Winter Park - Posh preprandial delectations

I am known to say that I have never met a Zontian who doesn't have a healthy appetite. Maybe I've met one who doesn't drink alcohol - but really - most events are accompanied with cake and champagne.

So if you are going to 2014 Orlando International Convention you could drink Lapu Lapus at the Polynesian  Resort .....
It has a little umbrella - snerk!
....or you could get serious and head out to Winter Park: Home of the Wine Tasting Room!

It was closed dammit! Just because it was 10am?!
Now there are several of these babies in Winter Park - and whilst they are very common in the USA, not so common in Australia. So for Australians - if you want to taste test wines you hop in your car and drive around a wine growing region stopping at the cellar doors. You taste the wines which that particular winery makes. One becomes very good at spitting.

The beautiful Yarra Valley - drink in the vines
In the USA, you go to your local shopping centre, you enter the Wine Tasting Store and sit there all afternoon until completely plastered.

Winter Park is the location is to transform oneself into a Patsy type character - it's all beluga and little nibbly things. I saw plenty of wine tasting, bottle shop type places mixed in gourmet olives, artisanal cheese and specialist chocolate shops. Not a single supermarket to be found. Until recently there used to be a store called Bullfish - a mixture of dog boutique and wine store.

Coffee, tea, spices, chocolate, tea - all the major food groups covered
When you have finished shopping for your little nibbly bits you may desire to release your tensions with a cheese platter and New Zealand SVB. Finally it is 3pm and you may enter the holy grail: The Wine Room. Using the unique Enomatic wine dispenser machines and the widest range of tasting bottles, supposedly in the world, at 150 on tap, this is the theme park of wine tasting!

The delightful Samantha Brown explains how it works - and become less lucid as the video progresses:

hmmm ... it's jammy and plummy and clangy and tinny and Eddie at 5:12

Zontians! It is time for a call to arms! Am I organising a function at The Wine Room ?..... with beluga and little nibbly things of course!


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