#29- Albarino

Oh Albarino you are one lucky grape. You could have been the worst tasting grape ever and we still would have enjoyed you. The circumstance called for the enjoyment of a glass of wine. Let me explain a little but first, about the bottle of wine.

The Albarino grape is a popular grape in western europe/mediterranean area (Portual and Spain). Our bottle of wine is from Spain, in particular from Rias Baixus.

The Albarino grape is not at all acidic and is very crisp and light tasting, especially after a ridiculous hike (more later, I promise it's coming). It's very floral and aromatic and I really enjoyed this wine. Craig did not (or he didn't like it as much as the Cattarratto). I blame his cold for his lack of taste. Or the lack of air perhaps. Time will tell.

But I really did like this wine and couldn't wait to get back to the campsite to drink more. You see, we did limit ourselves on our first wine tasting because of our location. Craig and I didn't do just any old hike last Sunday. No we did a hike that took us up a staggering 425 metres in less than 2km. In other words, we did a super steep climb.

Our hike started off normal enough. Craig and I did a nice 6km loop called the Overlander Falls circuit. Beautiful Falls and a nice walk along the Fraser River is what greeted us as we started out on our trek. We ended up back at the visitor centre and Craig and I decided to do what we thought would be a quick and easy hike up to the Viewpoint for Mt. Robson. Wrong. Oh so very wrong.

Back to the wine for a quick moment. Keep in mind that I am hiking with over 25lbs of weight on me to prepare myself for my trek up to Nepal. I also had a full bottle of wine and two wine glasses in my pack. Ok, now back to the story.

Craig and I stared out climb up to the viewpoint, mistakenly thinking it was only 0.5 km up (after another 1.2km hike into the woods) and a slight climb. We should really learn to read before trying these things. At 0.5 km or so, we realized we were wrong as the trail climbed very steeply and started into switchbacks (always a clear indication that your hike is gonna be tough). We kept going. We got tired. We swore a lot. It started to rain on us. No one else was on the trail other than a nice older Japanese couple who shut us up quickly (if they could do it, we have no excuse) and we climbed some more. We took breaks. We lost our breath. We wondered if the top of the mountain would ever appear.

It did. But it was a seriously tough climb, the last 0.6 km were ridiculously tough. But then we came to the viewpoint and ran into another young couple from the Edmonton area. What a sight! (the pictures don't do it justice nor do they show how high we actually were). So Craig and I celebrated by cracking open the bottle of wine and whipping out some snacks to carb up (note to selves: do this prior to hiking up, hiking down isn't as hard) with beef jerky, dehydrated mango, some chocolate and trail mix.  We also drank a ton of Gatorade while we were at it.

Craig and I spent about 40 minutes at the top, enjoying the view that we had just hiked nearly three hours for to enjoy. Heading back down, we made it in what felt mere minutes, grateful that our lungs could breathe the air and our legs weren't shaking from being pushed to the max.

I realize I am not near the shape I need to be in for Nepal (do they drink wine there? I'll have to check) but it was still worth every painful step to the top. Wine included.

 The next wine is our last wine we brought with us- Pinotage.