My friends Ember and Madeleine play the french bowling game, Petanque, at a winery in the Yarra Valley wine region of Victoria. It’s Good Friday, the first day of a four-day holiday weekend, and the three of us have taken the opportunity to escape the city for the day in search of a little fresh air with a glass of wine or two.

There are 160 wineries and more than 300 vineyards in the region that is best known for producing Chardonnay, sparkling wine, and Pinot noir. I learned that from Google, because honestly, beyond knowing which end of the bottle the drink comes out of, my knowledge of wine is extremely limited.

My lack of knowledge about wine should not be taken as a lack of interest though. In fact, I’ve been lucky enough to do wine tasting across the world from California to South Australia. However, while some people smell the bouquet of wine and come up with sophisticated and knowledgeable descriptions, I’ve been known to come up with some less than cultured descriptions.

This time last year, while at the McLaren Vale wine region in South Australia, I described one highly awarded red wine as “tasting like bricks.” I knew what I meant, but it seemed that the person selling the wine wasn’t overly impressed with my assessment.

This time around I didn’t say anything terrible, though if you ask Ember or Madeleine about the day they may suggest that wet shoes were mentioned at one winery, though of course, I couldn’t possibly comment about that.