November 9, 2013Wine Wankers Guest

How do you deal with a spider the size of your hand, a Massoni – Pinot Noir will certainly help!

I live in the Australian Blue Mountains just west of Sydney, its an absolutely beautiful place… BUT the wildlife can actually kill you.

This little spider was friendly (I think) and Harold is now sat in the rose garden out the front.  But the experience was made a lot easier due to this afternoon’s wine choice, as you will tell from the video clip.

1992 Massoni ‘main creek’ pinot noir from the Mornington Peninsular, Australia.

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These guys make a great savoury Pinot Noir with all the secondary fruit flavors I love.  Meaty forest floor, (does that actually make sense… really?).  The point = clear, light and delicate but such long finish and flavour that… well a bottle will last for hours at least as the flavour just sits in the mouth, no need to rush to the next glass and you really won’t want it to end.  Just what you want from a wine! Certainly ranks in my top 20 wines.

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Byron & spider

Does anyone else have any other wild animal wine stories?

Lord of the Drinks shared ‘Drunk French guys take a Lama for a tram ride’  …that is a crazy story… Lol.

65 comments

  6. I once lived somewhere similar, with rattlesnakes, tarantulas and scorpions within the city limits… once had a wolf spider the size of my hand in my flat, scared the cat off… scared me, dropped a 600 page medical micro textbook on it from 5 ft up… and the book began to crawl…yuck.

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  7. Ever seen a bird-eating spider? One of those lovelies ‘bailed me up’ in my own aviary (second hand and cleaning it out prior to putting in birds). I could have downed several bottles of anything after that little encounter!

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  10. We have one wine-critter story. After a night of drinking much wine with neighbors, we came home and saw on the floor what Hubs thought was a piece of the dog’s rawhide treat we’d left for her. It turned out to be a scorpion. It stung his finger tip as he reached for it. It was midnight, but the friends we’d just left had been stung before, so we called them for advice. They said as long as the toxin didn’t go beyond his arm, he’d be ok. So we spent a sleepless night waiting to see if we’d have to go to the emergency room. Turned out ok, no hospital necessary, and now we don’t pick stuff up off the floor when we’ve had wine. It’s a solid life-lesson.

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    • That is an awesome story!.. next time bring half a bottle of wine home with you, you can use the bottle to poke what ever it is, attempt to squash it or drink it to nub the pain!… after your story, I will always make sure I have a bottle of wine handy!

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  13. That is one big spider! When I lived in Oz, I was constantly in fear of all the things that could kill you – and the Aussies don’t help. Telling innocent travellers stories of drop bears and other things that don’t actually exist – like there aren’t enough actual things that can kill you 😉

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  15. With the weather warming, those spiders sure are coming out of hiding.
    Girlfriend of mine woke up to a huntsman sitting on her block of chocolate.
    That would have been a death sentence in this house.

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  20. I would have never been able to get numbed enough by the wine. Seriously. The only way that would have happened would have been if I’d grabbed the bottle as I was running, screaming, and getting as far away as possible. Did I mention I hate spiders? I don’t dislike them. I hate them. Hate. Eeeewww. Blech. I’m feeling all creepy just sitting here thinking about it…. Now I need to go drink some wine.

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  21. My reaction to spiders is always the same…get a glass of wine, drink it, THEN deal with the spider. (They’re really good for wine sales internationally) they’re good for gardens (I say) they’re important parts of the ecosystem (I repeat) they’re not poisonous (mostly) just suck it up and get it outside. After this next glass…and the next…then we’re buddies. I named her Martha. She’s still living in a corner of my bedroom window…I don’t mind. Much.
    Pinot Noir is my favorite red varietal. Why don’t we see more Aussie Pinot Noir over here in the Pacific Northwest? Are you all keeping the good stuff to yourself?

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  24. I have to say I love spiders, and fortunately, the only really potentially deadly spider we have in our area is the black widow. When my daughter volunteered at the natural history museum many years ago, someone brought in a large spider that had come in a box of fruit shipped in from South America. When the person opened the crate, the spider ran up and down her arm, and then she caught it in a container and to it to the museum. I forget the type, but it was very poisonous, and fortunately for her, it had it’s egg sack in it’s mouth when it crawled up and down her arm, so she didn’t get bit. I’m sure the woman went home and had a few glasses of wine, or perhaps something stronger, after she learned the spider was deadly. My daughter and her supervisor set up a terrarium for the spider, but it didn’t survive.

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  26. A couple of comments: (1) Does it count if, after drinking a very great deal, one imagines that millions of pink spiders are crawling over one’s body? (2) This quite seriously: I woke up one morning with a spider in my ear. An absolutely true story. I wasn’t certain at first what it was. For a time I thought that I might just have some dried earwax in my ear. Finally, I applied a couple of drops of hydrogen peroxide–and out crawled a very unhappy spider. I flung it to the floor, where it lay twitching wetly and feebly. I then delivered the coup de grace, courtesy of a paper towel.

    One hasn’t truly lived until one has had a spider in one’s ear . . .

    P.S.: No, I’ve never had the first experience and intend to avoid it, if at all possible.

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  27. Oh that was too much! Good thing you spotted hungry Harold before he made his way into a shoe and because squished Harold (or give-said-shoe-owner-a-heart-attack Harold). A great excuse to have some wine!

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