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Wine of the Week:  

Heathcote Estate Shiraz 2006 

I have come to enjoy the type of Shiraz that comes from Heathcote in Victoria. They generally have some ‘oomph’ to them and are very much enjoyed this time of year; either with a hearty casserole or a lovely medium rare steak...or even by itself to warm the cockles during the peak of Winter. The 2006 Heathcote Estate Shiraz is no exception. Full bodied with the hint of pepper and spice and well aged. Luckily, this particular bottle was a gift I received earlier this year from my work colleagues. I was appreciative when I unwrapped the bottle and even more so when I tasted the first glass. Thanks one and all who contributed.

 

I must say I have not heard of the Yabby Lake winery which the Heathcote Estate range hails from but suffice to say, I will be looking to learn more about them in the future.

Well, as those who have been regular readers of my blog in the past, you would realise that this is the first time that I have posted in 2012. To those kind souls that have kept asking me why I haven’t been posting and providing suggestions for their Friday night trips to the bottle-o, I apologise for the rather lengthy break. Why the pause in proceedings? I have no real excuse other than being focused on other pursuits and perhaps a slight dose of laziness. That said, what better reason to break the drought other than the Games of the Thirtieth Olympiad in London and more to the point, the performance of the Australian Olympic Team which have left many to feel a bit like my friend here below.

At the time of writing, Australia has 1 Gold, 12 Silver and 7 Bronze medals putting us 19^th in the overall rankings. From what I have seen, this has put the nation at large in a state of apoplexy and looking, nay demanding explanations as to why these results have been so poor, substandard and dare I say...un-Australian???

As for said explanations, I have heard a number of reasons why, particularly our swimmers haven’t followed the script and finished well below the expectations the nation have set for them; not training hard enough, a bad attitude, laziness, lack of Government funding...I even heard that Twitter is potentially the root cause of why our swags aren’t weighed down in golden booty (this last one justifying my decision to turn the sound down when watching the swimming on Foxtel). It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if the Carbon Tax is also trotted out as a probable cause soon as Tony Abbott has been a tad quiet of late.

If I may, I have one that I haven’t heard tabled; maybe... just maybe there are athletes from other nations on this Earth who perform better than us - even when our athletes deliver their best on any given day or night? Crazy I know but it’s just an opinion.

Yes, some of our athletes haven’t delivered their best when the whips have been cracking and some may have written cheques that have bounced when it has been time to cash in. However, many, many others have and will continue to do so over the next week.  

That and one other thing keeps going through my head:

• According to worldometers.info, the World’s population is now over 7 Billion people.
• According to www.mapsofworld.com, just fewer than 11,000 athletes will compete in the Games in London. 
• The Australian Olympic Team that is competing in London numbers 410 athletes.

In short, you have to be an exceptional athlete to get on the f...ing plane in the first place!!!

In the last few days, I was reminded of a bloke I used to work for in my early working days. As time passed by, we started to get to know one another a bit; as you do when you work side by side each other every day.

One day, I noticed his keyring and it was something that was from “The Olympians Club”. So I asked him the obvious question. Turns out, he had competed in the 1988 Olympics at Seoul in a sport that Australia had and continues to have a long and quite illustrious history in. Add to that, he was a World Champion in his sport the year before.

Even then, I was a sports nut so once I found out he had gone to the Olympics, I would start asking questions – what was it like, what had happened etc. At first, he was reluctant to talk about it as his performance at the Games wasn’t what he had hoped for and I don’t know, I think he wanted to make it a bit of a distant memory. Which was a shame because as I pointed out earlier, very few people get the chance to represent their country at the Olympics and to do so, you have to be close to the top of your sport over a fair period of time.

One day, my mate came in to work with a photo album which he showed me. It was his photos from the Seoul Olympics – ones from the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, ones with others in the Australian Olympic Team at the time and ones with him, in his Australian tracksuit with his proud parents. He also had mementos in there like his Olympic ID which was pretty cool as hey, it would be the closest I would ever get to one.

I was absolutely wrapped that he would share that stuff with me and thankfully a few others in the office as it was something he should have been proud of; irrespective of the result he achieved there. I know I was (still am) and this was years after he competed.

Maybe it is something we should remember when we sit around the coffee tables, water coolers and pubs over the next few days as we pass judgement on our team’s performances and the results that they achieve. That and one other thing...we are all entitled to have a bad day at the office once in a while.