The Wines of The Hunter Valley

  Hunter Valley, New South Wales, Australia Wednesday, January 7, 2015

We had been looking forward to this. Approximately 1 1/2 hours drive nort of Sydney lies the Hunter Valley. A region very famous for it's wine and we were in the car heading for it by 10am. The drive up there was very picturesque and the sun was shining. A great start to the day. We stopped at the regional tourist information centre and picked up a map and picked out five of the wineries we fancied visiting. After a quick bite (well it would have been quick but the service was terribly slow) to put some food in our tummies before tasting all the wines, we were off on the trail. The region is most famous for it's Semillon and it's Shiraz so we were keen to make sure we tried a few of these whilst we were here especially the award winners. We started with Hungerford Hill as it was the closest. This was a name we were all familiar with from buying wine in England so it seemed like a good choice. We walked up to the counter and for a while we were ignored but then the surly looking server came over and asked us what we would like to taste. To be honest, the few wines we tasted were not very nice and the surly man seemed to make the experience taste a lot more sour. So with hundreds of wineries to choose from, we left in search of something more pleasant! Next stop was Tempus Two. Now these people really know how to put on a display. Their whole site was much more inviting, They had several restaurants (about 4 if we remember correctly) ranging from Japanese to Aussie and had retail shops and Jody's favourite - a Smelly Cheese Shop!Well we spent about half an hour in the cheese shop alone. They has a cheese room for preserving all their best cheese and after a cheese tasting session too, we settled on some Aussie blue cheese and an Aussie brie. The wines here were delicious too and after tasting at least 4 of them, we walked away with two bottles. Next stop was McGuigan's. Now Jody remembers buying this by the case when she worked in Cornwall. The holiday centre carried it and she purchased a couple of cases for herself she liked it that much so it would be interesting to see how it compared. The lady serving in here was quite a character and she had all her jokes lined up with her stern Aussie wit. There were a couple of ladies by us at the counter we got chatting to and they were saying to us "oh you have to try this one" "Oh this one is worth trying too". By the time we left here we had sampled at least half a dozen wines and our cheeks were definitely more rosy than when we went in! We left with another bottle under our arm and drove the short distance to Brokenwood. This was one of Nigel's favourite wine houses as he said " they carried a nice wine". Yeah right Nigel. We saw the pretty girls behind the counter as soon as we walked in and clocked you straight away :-) Actually their wines were quite nice and it all tasted so much nicer as the staff were so friendly and chatty. We tasted about another 5 wines here so by now we were well on our way! Our final stop was Lindeman's. This is a name everybody knows so again we were keen to taste it in situ and not after it had been sent half way around the world. Lindeman's did not disappoint either. We tasted some lovely wines (about another half dozen of them) and again walked away with another bottle (and a couple of taster glasses but we won't mention those!) We had bought four bottles all in all. Most cost around £12 but one from McGuigan's had cost us £25. We had escaped quite cheaply really as we would have been tempted to buy it by the case if we hadn't got a flight booked for Saturday and there was no way we could drink a case by Saturday! We headed home with Nigel - our nominated driver - taking us safely back to Sydney. Bryan nodded straight off when we got in the car and even Jody closed her eyes for a minute or two. It feels a bit repetitive saying it now but we really had had a fabulous day out and it had been great fun. If we lived in Sydney, we know this would definitely be a regular trip for us. Maybe we will make more effort to visit the British ones when we get home :-)   [gallery columns="4" ids="10034,10036,10037,10038,10039,10040,10042,10044,10045,10046,10047,10048,10049,10050,10051,10052,10053,10054,10055,10058,10061,10063,10065,10066,10068,10069,10070,10071,10073,10076,10080,10082,10084,10086,10090,10093,10095,10099,10102,10103,10107,10112,10114"]