most of my friends know that I am a old wine wine persion, heck some might even say I am a Franco-phile when it comes to wine.  Well, a good friend of mine decided that I needed a ‘proper’ education in Aussie wines.  So as I was in Sydney for a short period, the natural and easiest to go wine region was Hunter Valley, famous for their semillon wines.

To prepare me for this new world wine education, we started with the most important element, a ‘flat white’ and banana bread. 😛 

After filling our tummies, we ended up at Polkobin Brothers to rent bikes to visit the cellar doors in the valley. Polkobin Brothers vineyards is an actual vineyard but they also have a separate business renting out bicycles (Grapemobile).  They were kind enough to pick us up from our hotel and their bikes were good quality. http://www.pokolbinbrothers.com.au/

They even give us a quick tasting so we could compare wines immediately (or ‘fuel’ us to get started).  I highly recommend their Sparkling Moscato.  It is light, fruity and lovely!

So the first cellar door we visited was Waverley Estate, which emphasize and pride themselves in selling aged wines.  (Something which is very usual in the old world).

Their aged Shiraz are good!  Although the most interesting wine I tasted was their Chardonnay.  The fruity texture reminded me of skinless tomatoes.  A very interesting note.

They are also very famous for their fortified wine, which they recommend having it with raisins.  I would however recommend pouring this over some vanilla ice cream (raisins and sultanas are optional).  Delish!

Next Stop is to another famous vineyard, Brokenwood.

The Cellar Door was busy but everyone seemed to be having a good time and enjoying themselves.

After trying their Semillon, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir (wayyy to acidic), Shiraz (not my style and perhaps a bit too ordinary) and finally their Sticky Wicket Semillon, I found their Pinot Gris the best.  It is light and crisp with a good lemon acidity like a decent Pinot Gris.

Juist opposite Broken Wood, is one of the grandest cellar door complex in Hunter Valley, Tempus Two,

The complex has a very good cheese shop which stocks decent ice cream as well.

The Tempus Two cellar door however was very busy and I felt the service we received was sub-par.  We were acknowledge but also ignored at the same time for 10 minutes.  It most certainly felt too commercialized and a bit soulless (where is the passion???).  Hopefully we were just unlucky and they are generally a lot better than that.

The Cellar door next door, Meerea Park however was brand new (yes the place still smelled of new paint) with very good wines.  They also have interesting wine names such as this ‘Hell Hole’

their Shiraz was very good and good value.

After all the tastings and cycling in the dark back to Polkobin Borthers to return our bikes (followed by more Moscato), it was then off to dinner at Muse which I think is definitely one of the best restaurants in Hunter Valley.  The food coupled with exemplary service made it an evening to remember.

The best was their fireplace which really warmed the place up during dinner and perfect for an after dinner laze with coffe/tea and petit fours.  Highly recommended.

The following morning, after being greeted with kangaroos, we started with De Iulius Wines, one of the vineyeards which has won numerous awards with their Shiraz.  I can understand why as their Shiraz, whilst young and  fruity; had a mellow texture which was very enjoyable.  Their Cellar Door is also guarded by cool bronze guards on stilits.

Selections of very good shiraz’s.  I would say that they are at the mid way point between powerful Barossa Valley ‘fruit bombs’ and old world Rhones.

Their late pick semillon is also good value.  It was not too sweet and had a good body and weight for a dessert wine.

Next stop was Tyrell’s wineries which is one of the oldest wineries in Hunter Valley and famous for their Semillon

The estate’s view is magnificent.

The Semillons are very good and they are most famous for thier Vat 1 Semillon.   Highly recommended.

After losing ourselves with the beautiful views, we then headed to the Small Winemakers Centre (next to Tempus Two’s Cellar Door).  They carry wines from various small producers of which Andrew Thomas is the most famous producer.  Andrew Thomas’s most famous Shiraz is called the ‘Kiss’.  It is a beautiful wine but to me was a bit too powerful.

Then it was off to a very famous Australian winery, Tower Estate.  It has a beautiful cellar door and we were greeted by a really cute butler.

Tower Estates make beautiful wines.  They do not sell at any bottles shops as they sell out quickly.  As they have vineyards all across Australia, we could try wines that weren’t from Hunter Valley, such as this Pinot Noir

The Pinot Noir is very new world in style.  I never knew pinot could get so fruity and powerful but if that is the style you like, this Towers Estate Pinot Noir is just for you.

Their Chardonnay however was surprisingly good.  It lacked the complexity and minerality of a good Chablis or Cote de Beaune white but is fruity and nice.

To me, their best wines was the pink moscato.  It is very nice and resonably priced at A$20 a bottle, until I realised it was only 500ml, where did my other 250ml go?

We were making good progress and after a quick bite, we were off to Peacock Hill Vineyard which makes a good ‘Sauternes’ style ice wine.

The way they make this wine is very interesting.  They claim that it is similar to ‘ice wine’ but it is not made in a traditional sense.  What they do is to pick the grapes (semillon and Sauvignon Blanc) as usual (after botrytis) and then freeze them prior to extracting the juice.  The end result tastes more Sauternes than Ice wine but is still quite a good sticky.

Two more vineyards to go but these are the local heavy weights, startign with Audrey Wilkinson which has a knockout view!

I could easily just sit there for a whole afternoon and admire the view!

The Cellar Door was busy and they had an interesting museum next door with some interesting (and expensive) wines on display.

Most of the wines were ok but to be honest, my palate was long gone after tasting so many wines.  I did come across a very interesting bottle which was their Vin de Vie, a sweet wine that has an almost port like texture.

The final cellar door fo the day, Mount Pleasant.  This cellar door is owned by the McWilliams family and they have a lot interesting brands and vineyards all over Australia.

We went straight for the good stuff.  Some of their wines have won sooooo many awards the gold throphies on the labels were making us blind.

My favourite and at a great quality to price ratio was their Shiraz Pinot Noir.  This is so different and i think one would get shot at if they ever attempted this with Rhone Shiraz and Burgundy Pinot Noir.

So after a great weekend trip and visiting numerous Cellar Doors, I think I understand Aussie wines a little bit better (starting from a base of zero :-P) but my heart is still France…