I had about a week and a half in Austria visiting these various producers and must say that I came back with a head filled with marvelous new sights, sounds, tastes, vistas of country and Vienna, etcetera. I was wined and dined so often and by so many people in such fabulous and original ways ( a race track, on a bridge, from a tower overlooking many green rows of vines below, on a two-horse and buggy ride through the vineyards and local artists' sculptures ) that it is marvelous to now revisit and reconnect these memories. I resurrect them for both you and me to enjoy. I will find my pictures, too and through them recreate so many of the marvelous anecdotes and pieces of these magical and thoroughly " new " and refreshing moments for me.
We traveled by bus to many of these vineyards and wineries by bus. Our base was Vienna and we stayed in the Hotel de la France I think it was called. What luxury. I had my own room. I'm only sorry that my wife had not come with me. She could have enjoyed being in Vienna while I went around visiting these various wineries. Oh well, you never know these things until you arrive where you are going. I had to enjoy Austria for the two of us and I think I did that.
I have so many memories to share with you but perhaps one of my all-time favorite ones occurred at the end of a long dinner in Vienna with the group of our wine owner. maker hosts. Leo Hillinger had left early. We were all wined and dined in a great salon along a long, sweeping table with so many beautiful, energetic, passionate people and the dinner went on for hours. It later moved to the bar at the other side of this big salon with large ceiling-to-floor glass walls that looked out onto parks, fountains, statues and all things green, colored with flowers and pleasing. I will have to look again at the pictures to refresh my faded memory and be more specific.
What I do remember that evening is how much we drank and ate and relaxed and got happy and uninhibited, a bit silly and so very free with words and gestures. No one was in any pain. We did get a bit tired and begin to flag at the very end. However, no one wanted this last evening there to end and so we stayed and drank beers and some smoked cigarettes at the end. Finally we all had to say our " good-byes " and find our ways home to our separate places. I was not sure how I was going to get home. I had no idea except that envisioned somehow walking back to the hotel, possibly hailing a cab.
I had to pee and everything was dissolving so quickly and people were disappearing and it would all soon be each person for themselves. I got downstairs to the mens' restroom and found myself peeing in the urinal next to Toni Bauer ( he's a man. In Austria the name Tony can be spelled Toni with a " i " and be for a guy ). He was exhausted, too but asked me how I intended to get back to my hotel and hearing my response he immediately offered to drive me home. Wow. I liked this. Acceptance into the inner circle. My chance to be alone with just the wine owners and wine makers. I love and thrive on this type of stuff.
We all piled into the car : Anton, Gustav Strauss and Anton's beautiful blond girlfriend who's name escapes me just now - sorry ! ) and off we drove down the beautiful but largely-deserted broad avenues and sweeping boulevards of Vienna- all squeezed into this car. I did not mind. I was reveling in this moment - the end of the evening with some of the people that I had come to see and get to know better. I had finally arrived. This was my grand treat : this was the Austria that I had come and wanted to see and experience first-hand. Thank you Anton, Gustav. A better ending I could not have asked for : simple, direct, accepted - that was the point, the only point that truly mattered to me. It still is the only point that really counts where I am concerned. Someday I hope to be able to offer both Anton ( Toni ) Bauer and Gustav Strauss a lift here in the States when they need it. And thank you, too to Anton's beautiful blond girlfriend who I sat next to at the dinner that night and who charmed me to the core with just her presence and grace.
I have so many pictures, many of this dinner and of our more relaxed time afterwards at the bar. I hope to download them onto this computer soon and then onto this blog page. Cheers, TONY
I enjoyed going to the opening ceremonies of the LOISIUM : what a treat that was!
