Hunter Valley

Some people, and by some people we mean most South Australian winemakers, will tell you that the Hunter Valley is as suitable for grape growing as Darwin is for ice sculpting. Sure it can rain a bit during vintage, the Pokolbin car-wash closes down for the first 10 weeks of the year, but Australia’s oldest wine region still makes some pretty special wines. This is where grape vines first took root in Australian dirt and where Maurice O’Shea made some of the greatest wines ever seen in this country. This is where generations of Tyrrells have tilled the soil and great old wine family names like Drayon and Tulloch take up whole pages of the phone-book. It was in the Hunter than James Halliday and his mates built the weekend winery that became Brokenwood and where Dr Max Lake created Australia’s first boutique winery at Lakes Folly. The Hunter gave us Australia’s first commercially released chardonnay back in the early 1970’s and with its distinctive regional semillon and shiraz it contributes two uniquely Australian styles to the world of wine. Maybe the South Aussies are just a bit jealous.