We toured 3 wineries in the Hunter Valley a beautiful area only 2 hours drive north of Sydney. We were surprised how small some the wineries were particularly the two known back home Lindemans and Rosemount Estate, maybe they stretched back miles but they look compact from the road. The region only produces 3% of Australia's wine so we're thinking that maybe Lindemans has a bigger gaff in South Australia or Victoria. Apparently the valley consists of lots of smaller patches of good wine soil which is different from other Aussie and international wine regions which have large areas of similar dirt.
The three wineries were: Draytons, Golden Grape and Tulloch all family owned. The wine tasting was good craic, we actually preferred the whites cause the reds (Shiraz largely) were very oaky flavoured. They fired port at us and dessert liqueurs too which ranged from disgusting to a little rotten. The strangest stuff we had was Dragon's Breath Schnapps which was made with red chillies.
Our tour consisted of a nice mix of Irish people (us) Germans, Dutch, Chinese, Hong Kongese and a Swiss guy. By the second winery the Asians and actually to be fair to them the Dutch couldn't hack the pace and wandered off during the tasting. The Irish, Germans and the Swiss dug deep and put away everything they threw at us. The tour guide, Robert (good bloke), thought this was pretty funny.
We had a nice, expensive lunch before to heading to the last winery and on to the Smelly Cheese Shop. The last wine joint was a class above the rest having been redeveloped a few years ago probably with the intention of hosting weddings. And it worked! There was a reception just after we were there and the wine fella told us that there have been three proposals on the site too.
All in all we had a lovely day, felt slightly tipsy as we left as you'd expect.
3 comments:
Strange vines with the big red flowers on them. Was that for the Rosé wine?
I see that David is keeping up the McBride tradition -- a few glasses of wine and we're out jumping over rose bushes. The wine seemed to wear off pretty quickly though, judging by his face in the photo after the jumping shots.
Three proposals -- still? David, your mum wants to know whether she should be looking for a dress.
Had they any buckfast? You look as though you'd been drinking it when you were jumping over the rose bushes.
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