Whine Tasting

Wednesday April 25th

The first glass of red wine I ever enjoyed was a Hunter Valley Shiraz. I'd never seen the point before then, and though we've tried, we've never found another Hunter Valley that matches up to that first bottle.

The Hunter Valley produces only 4% of Australia's wine but it's close to Sydney (200kms north west - a hop skip and jump in Aussie terms) so punches above its weight in the tourist stakes. The best of the wines here are the whites and the famous names are Wyndham's, Tyrrel's, Lindemans, Rosemount Estate and McWilliams.

We started the day at McWilliams Mount Pleasant estate, where we were able to bribe Ella with a couple of Cadbury's Freddo bars because she doesn't know what chocolate really tastes like. This bought us the half hour we needed to take the tour of the winery, though as it was just the three of us, the guide let us try a glass straight from the tap on the side of the cooling tanks. What priviledge.

Afterwards we had lunch at the Vinyards' own restaurant. The Hunter is a foodies dream; fine wining and dining experiences at virtually every crossroads. Ella, of course, needed to sleep, which meant our tour was more Keith Chegwin than Keith Floyd. She pushed her lunch around her plate while we tried to enjoy ours. With the benefit of hindsight, a wine tasting tour of the Hunter Valley might have been a little ambitious with a toddler on board.

In the afternoon we planned to visit Tyrrell's. We did visit, but I had to swiftly un-visit when it became apparent that Ella wasn't going to play ball. It began to rain, so she and I took a whine tour of the (very bumpy) Broke Road while Darren stayed behind at Tyrrell's. He gets all the best gigs.