Wine tasting in Hunter Valley
Today we took a drive up to Hunter Valley to checkout some boutique wineries that a lady at the Nelson Bay Information Center had recommended. The area is a rolling hills version of Napa including balloon rides but no where as crowded. Of course it helps if you go on a weekday! Their claim to fame is Semillion and Shiraz. They also plant lessor amounts of Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon plus a smattering of other varieties. We stopped at four small wineries: Capercallie, Kevin Sobels, Tamburlane and Audrey Wilkinson. Kevin Sobels was the largest and produces 18,000 cases a year, the others less than 10,000 cases per year. None export their wines to the US.
After lasting the Sobel wines and petting Joe, we stopped for lunch at the Cellar Restaurant in Hunter Valley Garden Village to keep the driver sober. Normally I would not bore you with what we ate but they had an extremely creative menu. How about Crispy Zucchini Flowers stuffed with Crab and Lemon over Smoked Salmon or Chargrilled Quail with Sausage, Walnut and Apple Salad and Fig Vinegar? Plus many other things we never heard of!
After lunch we headed for Tamburlane and Audrey Wilkinson. As we were leaving Audrey Wilkinson with our bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon (you can get a good bottle of cab here for $25 AU) we ran across Lindemans. This is a name familiar to all of us US winos. The girl behind the counter was not sure of how many cases they make but she said they do over 24 million bottles of Semillion alone. They are obviously the Gallo of Hunter Valley! We did not taste their wines since it would be very hard to beat those we just had at Audrey Wilkinson. Before you plan on moving here, you should know it was 46 °C on New Years day and similar temperatures for the rest of the week.
Thursday, March 30, 2006