Adelaide Convention Centre

It is sad to gaze down on the great expanse of the Adelaide Convention Centre and see it neutered. This giant building, several city blocks square, sits silent. Every day we must gaze down upon this massive monument to the many people who are out of work. The convention business is suspended.  Convention goers, industry vendors, convention models, ushers, food service personnel, taxi drivers, nearby hotels, airlines bringing in the convention goers, restaurants feeding them outside of convention hours, all suspended.

The tall building peeking out from the right side of the Convention Centre picture directly above is our apartment building.

We were fortunate during our first weekend in Adelaide to attend Cellar Door Fest. It is a small wine festival featuring small, less known producers. Most are trying to make a name for themselves and develop a loyal following.
We arrive with Tonto’s advance scouting report.  Our tickets were for the Sunday session.  Our friends James and Jackie had attended the Friday session and given us recommendations.  Unfortunately this year they were in the market for chardonnay and bubbly. We need red wines and everyday drinking white wines.

As expected, their recommendations were spot on and we ended up totting more than we could reasonably carry across the street to our apartment.  This is likely what started CJ’s back problems. In addition to what we carried we have a case and a half at one producer’s place in Norwood and another couple of cases in the Adelaide Hills at New Era Winery. That producer, located in the part of the exhibition dedicated to bushfire relief, will be the subject of a separate blog entry.

There were two craft brewers offering samples.  They have a long way to go to catch up with US craft brew quality.

Following our wine sampling, we have tickets for the Hentley Farm long table lunch.  The food is good for convention center catering, the wines very good although not as good as CJ had hoped and remembered. A master of ceremonies was overbearing to the point of annoying and detracting from the nice meal.

We were fortunate to get this in before the world went mad and all events were cancelled.