Wine Makes Me A Better Photographer.

It was mid-November and really cold outside. The kind of cold where even if you are traveling to a new area you want to just stay inside. And that’s exactly what I wanted to do.

We had just settled into our cozy Sound Of Music room and I was ready to throw on my pj’s and watch a movie. Then somehow Randy found out about a random wine bar ‘somewhere’ in walking distance. Randy+Wine+Adventure = walking around in the freezing cold until we found a way to warm our bones with wine.

Randy was all in and I knew I was screwed. So I piled on every bit of warm clothing I had, we walked off the boat and into the dark Viennese night in search of a random wine bar. I wasn’t thrilled. I was cold and tired.

We strolled into town and somehow Randy had directions – I can’t even remember how since we didn’t even have a name to go by. We wandered around unsuccessfully for 15 – 20 minutes and were just about to give up and head back to the boat when Randy insisted we walk down one more road. I guess his internal wine finding GPS was firing on all cylinders because lo and behold we found the place.

Tucked back down a nondescript driveway that looked like someone’s house, we spotted what appeared to be a menu on the wall so we wandered in and entered into what would become my favorite Austrian memory.

I call it a wine bar, but it wasn’t really a typical wine bar like you would find in the States. It was more of a family style restaurant that specialized in wine. There were no late 20-something happy hour regulars here–just people drinking wine and beer. I guess if I had to liken it to anything it would be more like a beer hall in Germany, a very chilled out beer hall that served mostly wine.

Part of what lured Randy to this place was that the wine was supposedly very good and really cheap. Now,I’ll be upfront, we are by no means wine snobs–I have a secret love of Two Buck Chuck–but we can definitely appreciate a really good wine, like the wines we tasted in Tuscany. We sat down at a large wooden table and ordered one red and one white.

Our glasses were delivered quickly and unceremoniously in every day tumblers. I concluded a while ago that wine in tumblers instead of proper wine glasses is almost always a good thing,because it means the people serving it are more interested in the heart of the wine instead of fancy facades. And at only 2 Euro a glass this place delivered.

The wine was fantastic and we ordered glass after glass after glass after glass…

The rest of the perfect wine drinking night was somewhat of a blur which ironically really helped clear my head. I had been in a bit of a photographer’s block and on our walk home I took a few photos and felt more alive photographically then I had in a while. I just hadn’t been able to ‘see’ right before this night and was struggling to take my style of photos during the past couple of months in Europe. Not many people know this, but I need creativity to feel good. When I don’t have it I feel stale, it becomes harder and harder to get it back and life really starts to lose it’s luster. The past couple of months had been fun but still I was kind of down–since we were technically headed east I guess you could say I was Eastbound & Down.  I know that a lot of you out there can probably relate to this. BTW, if you haven’t seen that show, check it out. It’s hysterical if you like over the top, raunchy humor.

Something about this night changed things for me (hint: it was red and in liquid form). These photos certainly aren’t earth shattering but they signified the beginning of something new and the end of the lifeless, landscape junk that had been plaguing me. The portrait of Randy at the top of this post is one of my favorites from all of our time in Europe.

RELATED: 12 Portraits Of Vineyard Workers In Tuscany.

Randy and I also had a lot of fun this night. It was just one of those unplanned travel experiences that for no good reason keeps you smiling and excited. Seeing the sights is always fun but for me, my favorite memories always come from this type of random wandering.

Like very bad travel bloggers neither of us wrote down the name of this place or the location during our visit, but I did a little digging online and found it!

Schübel-Auer

 If you are in the area and looking to make some memories with a great glass of wine (or several) then be sure to check this place out. And if you’re taking the Gate 1 Danube River cruise and have a stop at the Nußdorf port then be sure to wander your way up there one night for a little wine tasting. You’ll only be about 10 minutes away by foot.

Don’t forget to bring your camera.

*Please remember all photos on this website, unless otherwise noted, are copyrighted and property of Beers and Beans Travel Website & Bethany Salvon. Please do not use them without my permission. If you do want to use one of them please contact me first. Thanks!
Disclosure: While we were hosted on the Danube River cruise by Gate 1 Travel, our thoughts and opinions are entirely our own.