We are at the end of our Australian visit. Fremantle and Perth are the last two places we will see on this trip. Fremantle is the port city and Perth, about 12 miles inland, is the capital of Western Australia (WA). As you can see from the map below, Perth is about 2500 air miles from Sydney. It has been called the most isolated major city in the world. It is closer to Indonesia, China, and the Far East than it is to most of the rest of settled Australia.

2500 miles from Sydney to Fremantle/Perth.

We arrived at about 4:00 PM on a Saturday and immediately boarded a bus for our first excursion – a degustation featuring Plantagenet wines paired with a chef’s choice of amuse-bouche sized portions of food. It turned out to be a six-course tasting and we would up with four bottles of wine!

Our degustation in the cellar!

We had a very brief tour of downtown Fremantle – called Freo by the locals and anyone who has been there for at least ten minutes…then directly on to Plantagenet wine cellars. Plantagenet bought the Samson Brothers winery a number of years ago and folded it into its portfolio. Plantagenet is one of Australia’s largest wine conglomerates.

We got off the bus and were led into a literal cellar set for the 14 of us on the tour. Lea, our lovely hostess, told us some of the history of Plantagenet and introduced us to the menu and the wines. We later found out, after speaking with her privately during the degustation, that she has a PhD in oenology from the University of Michigan – yes, Michigan! We also found out that the U of M has one of the USA’s top wine programs! Who knew??

Our sommelier, Lea, and the Chef; she's the one with the PhD...

The menu began with a parsnip puree over a free-range egg yolk accompanied by a sparkler made in the method champenoise. This was followed by a seared scallop with black pudding (blood sausage) over a celeriac puree accompanied by a Riesling. The next course was a sous vide duck breast over a foie gras puree with roasted chestnut pieces. The wine was a Chardonnay – the only inappropriate note of the evening. The fourth course was a line-caught snapper over a pumpkin puree with kale and tomato essence that was also accompanied by the Chardonnay. The fifth course was a lamb loin over heirloom beet puree with a cauliflower sheet (a rather interesting presentation using agar to emulsify the cauliflower puree) sand raspberries. This was accompanied by both a Shiraz and a Cabernet Sauvignon. Finally…finally, the dessert was a blue cheese with meringue, pears and a balsamic emulsion. The wine was a cane cut Riesling. Cane cut is a rather unusual dessert wine preparation that develops a fruity rather than sweet dessert wine. Wow!

During the dinner – I mean degustation since this was not meant to be a dinner, rather a “tasting” – our hostess, Lea, played a “Jeopardy” game and asked a few questions. The first one with the correct answer got a bottle of wine. Yours truly and wife got two bottles! Lea also offered to sell us 375 ml bottles of the cane cut Riesling. Of course we had to buy one. As awe were leaving and as I was thanking Lea and the Chef for the wonderful experience, Lea pulled me aside and gave me a bottle of Plantagenet Shiraz! What a coup! This is not available in the US and we can cellar it for a few years… On the way back to the ship, Bonnie and I figured that we got over $125 of wine for about $30. Not as bad evening’s work.

After rolling back to the ship, we turned in early to ready ourselves for an early tour the next morning, Sunday.

Across the harbor from us was a rather unusual ship: a cattle condo. Yes, a special bulk carrier for cattle, sheep, and other livestock to be shipped anywhere in the world – LIVE! Mostly the shipments go to Japan and the Far East, but occasionally they make their way to Europe as well. Notice the catwalks for the humans and the open cages for the cargo…

The cattle condo. Note the walkways for the humans and to get a feel for the size of that ship, it towered over us as we sailed in.

A close-up of the condos. Imagine having a stateroom with constant-flow weather...

Unfortunately, except for two brief stops for photo ops, we did not have much time of good location within the bus to take many pictures. The sun was so bright outside that all the windows reflected and photos were sparse.

Bonnie and me overlooking Perth. Absolutely gorgeous!

A panoramic view of Fremantle

A panoramic view of Perth

We are now entering the Indian /ocean and will arrive in Bali in three days. We are excited about going to Bali and I hope to have much to relate in my next post.