Australia's beautiful Hunter Valley (and its wines)

The final Australian wine tasting was in the Hunter Valley. This was a very different feel to the industrial vineyards in the Riverena and the more rural ones on the outskirts of Canberra. The area is quite hilly and there are quite a lot of picturesque locations with lakes and trees surrounded by grape vines which you can enjoy while sampling the fruits of the vines.

We were very lucky on this occasion to be in the company of someone from the area who also drove us around (she deserves a big thankyou as well as the wine that we bought with her).

The biggest difference I noticed straight away with the tastings themselves in the Hunter was that some of the vineyards charge to taste some of their more expensive vintages at the cellar door (although this is usually refundable if you buy something). This discouraged casual drinkers and guaranteed that the tourists from overseas (who aren't going to buy any more than a bottle to take home) don't drink all the profits, however I think that this is a little sad as we'd never have bought the wines from McWilliams (see the blog post on the Riverena vineyards) if they had been charging for us to try it.

The first vineyard we visited was the Lambloch estate, this one has won awards for its new cellar door and it is easy to see why, boasting great views (pictured left) from the tasting bar as well as having an interesting selection of wines, although most of the ones I wanted to try were at a cost (and because I hadn't paid for any tasting so far I decided to pass in indignation). My fiancee did grab a buttery Chardonnay from there which did taste pretty good (although I know that the buttery Chardy is not to everyone's taste).

We then went to Brokenwood, I had big expectations as for the last few weeks I had been drinking wines from there as my Father in Law (to be) used to be a member of the winery and so has a selection of Brokenwood wines from 2008-2010 which are now at about optimum drinking (and we have been having a bottle of two of these of an evening). Sadly the tasting there was not great, due to the time of year (just after Christmas) there appeared to be a huge amount of people out to restock their cellar after a week of boozing, the wine there was also all deliberately warm, this apparently was to allow you to get a better taste of the white wine. Sadly we didn't really get much chance to confirm this as we were widely ignored by the servers managing to get 2 samples in 30 minutes, obviously as these were only the cheaper end of the wines on the list and so were difficult to rate, in the end we left in disappointment and frustration not least because the 2008 Brokenwood Shiraz is one of the best wines I have had the pleasure of drinking during my time in Australia.

Next on the trip was another busy and popular vineyard, "Audrey Wilkinson" which is another vineyard with a great view and modern tasting bar. The contrast between the tasting here and at Brokenwood was very stark. Despite the large amounts of people at the cellar door we were served quickly and attentively with the people working there  giving us descriptions of the wine and telling us about the history of the place.

As well as a good story the server also provided us with the usual variety of recent whites (a very good Verdelho and some reasonable Semillion and Chardonnay) and reds (a reasonable but young Shiraz and an average tempranillio) plus an added bonus, the 2010 Lake Shiraz. This is made from the oldest and best Lakeside vines on the estate, pictured above and sells for 65 AUD a bottle. Although not yet at its peak you could tell from the scents of blackberries and the rich plummy taste with a slightly peppery finish that this will be a very good wine in 5 years time. I managed to resist buying this while my fiancee once again purchased a chardonnay (I sense a theme developing here!).

The next winery we visited was Poole Rock. Where along with the traditional selection of Hunter wines we were treated to these, pictured on the right. These are both traditional Hunter style Shiraz wines, from 2003 and 2007 not being too sweet or jammy, but instead having a very earthy (in a good way) taste and a slightly peppery aftertaste. The 2003 is apparently at its peak and was a really smooth, fruity Shiraz whereas the 2007 could still be cellared for a couple of years, although I think if I knew it was in my cellar I would be tempted to drink it before it got too dusty!

By this time we had sampled a fair number of wines and decided on one final stop would be enough, this was at Petersons house who specialize in sparkling wines, I would have to say this was definitely worth a stop as there are several really good sparkling red, white and roses wines from the region, although I seem to be alone in my liking for the occasional sparkling red (even the person serving us admitted she did not drink it) my main issue for commenting on these in detail is the fact that I may have swallowed a little too much of the wine in the previous vineyards and am struggling to recall much detail.

Next stop is going to be Santiago in Chile, followed by Mendoza in Argentina, so I image that wine, vineyards and tastings are going to be a pretty prominent part of the next few blogs as well. I promise that in order to write a better blog from there I will be taking copious notes (at least for the first few vineyards of the day) rather then rely on pictures and my memory as I have found from the last few blogs that these can prove  sketchy at best for some of the less impressive wines, although this is probably acting as a filter so I am only writing about the really good wines we find in all of those places.