To maximise our time with the family, between Xmas and New Year, we all headed up to the Hunter Valley, a renowned wine region in New South Wales famous for its Semillon and Shiraz wines. Not done this sort of thing before we were all looking forward to a few days of wine tasting and even more so knowing we had a dedicated driver in Peter, who doesn’t like wine – brilliant!
We arrived a little later than expected, due to being stuck for 2 hours trying to get out of Sydney, however arrived in time to visit one winery, which was still open – just. After tasting the wine portfolio of Tintilla (and realising that this was a great way to get drunk for free, if you should so wish!) we opted for their lovely sparkling red, sold to us by the guy it was named after and who said its perfect with kangaroo wellington!
That evening, to keep things fair, we visited the Bluetongue brewery and sampled some of their beers – something for Peter. The Bluetongue premium ale came up tops as did their Ginger beer which is a fab straight off the beach drink!
The next two days we got into the swing of things and visited McGuigans – not only wine but cheese tasting too – again something for Peter!, Harrigan’s, Tyrrells (where we had a great wine tour), Audrey Wilkinson (the first winery in the Hunter Valley), Lindemans / Rosemount, Pepper Tree, Petersons, Savannah, Scarborough, and Tinklers (excellent boutique winery). Of course we obliged and bought some wine too!
Whilst at Hunter we got to see some of Australia’s wildlife – Skippy and Lama’s, who look like baby camels!�
