UQ wine tasting event

I graduated from university of queensland (UQ ) July 2006 and that's close to 3 yrs since i came back to singapore. One good thing about my university is that they never failed to keep graduates like me in the loop of any alumuni activities and events. They would religiously send out university newsletter, contact, to us all the way from Queensland or include us in the mailing list for any upcoming UQ alumni events. The UQ alumni networks spans from different parts of the world and that include hong kong, china, singapore, malaysia and etc. And every year, the UQ alumni of singapore will conduct activities or events just for us to upkeep close ties with our fellow UQ graduates.

Just last year they held a wine tasting event at this place in the heart of chinatown called The Wine Symphony. At first, i wasn't keen but because of my UQ friend Shan Min, she influenced me to go since she said " It's only $15 and you can get free flow of wine ! You can even mingle with our UQ seniors !" And so, both of us signed up for it and we were looking forward to it.

The day came and i got lost along the mosque street where The Wine Symphony is located. I couldn't find the place still, luckily shan min who was there earlier came down to look for me. She brought me to the exact location of The Wine Symphony and it turns out that it is located upstairs of the shophouses. We climbed the stretched stairway and finally stepped into the place. A small group of UQ graduates were already there, drinking and chatting away. I was greeted by the sight of orange lit bar counter, few tables and chairs and bottles of wines chilled in the silver coloured bucket of ice.

There about 8 bottles of wines for us to taste and few bowls of cheese and nacho chips were placed on the table. That evening were well spent by having few glassess of wine. Staffs from "The Wine Symphony" were knowlegeable about wine and tells us what we can expect from each different wine. Well, after few rounds of drinking, I felt my head started to feel alittle heavy and so is shan min. One of the UQ graduate came over our table and wanted to take a picture with us and we posed for the camera, appeared slightly drunk in the pictures..ahahaha...i still have the picture loaded in the facebook :P Anyway, the evening ended well and since their wine is pretty good, most of us bought few bottles back...what did i buy? ...ahahhaa...i can't remember the name but i do know is sweet style red wine from australia. Now I know you may want to know which part of australia, heh, i can't remember. Damn ! I should have jot it down, serve me right. But i will check it for you guys, perhaps one day... :P

Wine connection.

Ah well..this is sort of last year thing but still i decided to blog it.

My secondary school friend, quan and i have always talked about going to wine bar to enjoy a bottle of good wine. That's always the most discussed topic between us but we didn't really do it. But one saturday evening, feeling bored with walking along the streets of orchard, we wanted a change of location ( believe me, we always at orchard practically every week !). Then an idea hit me and I said " Why not we go to wine connection just order a botte of wine, sit and enjoy by ourselves?" Quan replied excitedly " Okay !" But wait a min, two of us only? A good bottle wine is to be shared with good company of friends ! How can we miss that ! That was my thinking then. I proposed the idea to quan "Hey, call some friends along too.." And so, we called two of our friends Ivy and Yimin along and both agreed to join us at wine connection.

It took us 30 mins going from orchard to wine connection at Robertson walk and reached there around 9pm. There was a good crowd of people, sitting outdoors, talking and laughing. We found a nice place to settle down and were served by a friendly filippino waitress, presenting us the menu of different wines. Flipping and looking through the menu, we were still pretty indecisive on what we wanted, hence, we asked the waitress for recommendation. And so, she suggested to us a bottle of light red wine to start off with, the price is reasonable around $25 or so (excluding GST and Service charge). Heh, when our bottle of red wine came, it was unscrewed carefully by the waitress and she poured the wine skilfully into our glass. The she popped back the bottle into the bucket of ice for chilling. And so we began to enjoy our wine...

Both of us holding our glasses of red wine

Table filled with glasses of water and wine

Left to right: Yimin, Ivy and Quan

We spent close to two hours at wine connection and had killed two bottles of wine (red and white). To sum it up, it was a good experience to drink at wine connection, the waitresses and waitors are friendly, the ambience is good and cosy. You could hear laughters and chattings everywhere at wine connection, seem like people really have an enjoyable time there. Definately, it is a place I never regret going to enjoy a glass of wine.

Why I like wine..

Before i started this blog i have so many ideas on what i am going to write about wine. I do not possess deep profound knowledge of wine and do not act like one high class person to show wine is only meant for rich people to enjoy. It's just like Golf, people always think Golf are meant for rich people because is an expensive sport. To me, its a matter of understanding, learning and enjoying something which you like. I like wine because it teaches me 6 subjects; Science, History, Geography, Botany, Languages and Law. Second, wine is something to appreciate by using your senses and feeling. Third, I just like my taste buds to be thrilled by different combination of flavours found in a wine. Imagine, you get to taste pepper corn , pine, tar or coffee in such beverages!

Drinking and appreciating wine also brings your family or friends closer. My family is not indulgent in wine but whenever, let say a bottle of wine is brought out by me during BBQ or family dinner. They will bring their cups to me and I will be more than happy to fill their cups with the wine I bought. During my university days in brisbane, housemates would buy a bottle of wine to share among us during or after dinner and yeah, i remember those lited tealight candles as well which adds up the atmosphere. Wine in australia is dirt cheap and you can get a good bottle of red wine just for less than $10 or so. Furthermore, they have many varieties of wine which you can pick and select. Reason, australia climate is suitable to grow and harvest grapes which therefore many wineries can be found there as well. In singapore, wine is rather expensive as compare to australia because we don't have the climate or resources to produce grapes and wine. Heh, that's why i make it a point to buy a bottle of red or white wine from australia and bring it back whenever i am there.

Whenever i am in the supermarkets, I would hit at the wine section just to admire and to study the wine bottles and labels. And because the wine section carries wines from different parts of the world e.g Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, South Africa, and feels like not being in singapore for a moment. Studying the wine labels bug has gotten into me as well because every bottle of wine tells me different stories about them. Gradually, i grew to fascinate with wine and even dream to have my own collection of wine. Unfortunately, my house don't own a wine cellar to store wine. Maybe someday i have a place of my own, i will get a wine cellar and stores all the good wines I have collected..

And how it begin...

It was one fine sunny weather, beautiful clouds were outside the plane's window which we were seating beside it. At that time, both me and my sister, (17 yrs and 16 yrs old) were on the flight to brisbane for a holiday. That was our first exciting trip to australia by ourselves without our parents ! Never did we know, that the first trip to australia had further exposed us to the rich cultures and advertures of australia at later part of our lives.

My first contact with wine started off with one old but yet good looking air steward pushing trolley down the aisle of the plane serving beverages. The night before the flight to brisbane, dad told us to learn how to behave like an adult on the plane by ordering and drinking red wine. Me and my sister laughed it off, and told dad we would just order coke or orange juice instead because we were still under the legal age of drinking then or rather we were just afraid to try alcoholic drink. The sound of trolley came to us, with a smile and the air steward asked " What would you all like to drink, my girls?" Somehow, i blurted out this order without thinking twice " How about two glasses of Red wine, please" Both my sister and the air steward looked at me and for a moment, there was an awkward silence. " Alright, two glasses of Red wine for both of you.." he took out the bottle of shiraz red wine and pour it into the glasses. My sister whispered into my ears " Are you sure you want to drink that?? Are you able to hold the liquor well? What if both of us puke on the plane ???" Lines of concerns and worries were all written on her face but I told her confidently " Don't worry, we will sure be fine with this harmless drink". After the air steward placed the glasses on our trays, he chirped " Enjoy your drink , my girls" and continued pushing the trolley.

One glass each for both of my sister and me, we looked at our glass of Red wine with curiousity. Sister swirled the glass, smell the Red wine and straightaway gulped down half of it whereas I just sipped the wine slowly. It tasted bitter for me and i felt as if i had chew some tree bark. But still, i managed to sip finish and not a single drop of shiraz red wine was left in my glass. And what happen to my sister's remaining shiraz Red wine in her glass? She didn't manage to drink finish. instead, she started to feel " heavy" in her head. The same air steward who served us the red wine came by again to clear away empty bottles and cans. He saw my sister's half drank red wine, shook his head and disposed it the bin...

Yep, that was my first experience tasting Red wine which I would never forget. And what about yours?:)