Hunter Valley Wine Tasting

In day 2 of organized tours, we had booked a wine tasting tour in the Hunter Valley region near Sydney. We were picked up at 6:45 from our hotel. Since we were running a little late, we didn't get a chance to have breakfast and had to wait until they stopped around 8 and we ran over to Oliver's and got coffee and a smoothie and a light breakfast before heading out again.

Our first winery stop (at 10 am - it was after noon in california though) was at Ernest Hill Winery, a small family owned affair. They sat us down around barrels and we had a very friendly and knowledgeable server pour us 6 or so wines and let us know about them.

Since there was tons of drinking to do, we piled back into the van and headed to Oakdale. Again we were at a big table and they talked us through the various wines. Hunter Valley is in love with the Semillon grape, which makes some nice wines. We also like that they make a bunch of light sparkling desert wines that are not too sweet. While they describe food pairing for every other wine, they always tell us for the sparkling ones "this one goes best with a 2nd bottle".

They herded us back into the van and we headed to our lunch stop, Blue Tongue Brewery. The driver had told us in advance that you could get a paddle of beer tasting and we were intrigued. Turns out when you get the paddle, you also get a full glass of your favorite. We ordered lunch and a paddle and freaked out the driver when he saw us only drinking beer and asked about our lunches. We let him know that we were only consuming alcohol today and food just got in the way. I wish I had taken a picture of his reaction. It turned out that the beer we liked the best was not one of the brewery's but an Italian Peroni brand beer. Australian beer is on the lighter side than most American beers. And as a bonus, Megan finally found some beers she likes.

Our next stop was Tintilla winery. Most of the vineyards in Hunter valley only sell at the tasting room, or cellar door as they call it in Australia. This winery was no exception as they don't make a lot of cases. The winemaker recently got married and made a wine for his bride to be. It was another sparkling desert wine and it was excellent. They actually only sold a few cases extra of the first vintage and once they realized everyone loved it, they started producing it in future years for general consumption. Megan lamented that I should have made a wine for her for our wedding. A quick reminder of our current wine making escapade brought her back down to earth.

Our last winery stop was at Mistetoe. Sadly they have no mistletoe up around the vineyard which seems like false advertising. They do have a ton of paintings up and have the picture nazi running around telling you not to take any photos. We did anyway. We were glad this was the last vineyard cause we were a little tasted out. Luckily there was still more to do though!

Our last stop before heading back was a combination cheese shop / gelato shop. Two of my favorite things rolled up into one building. Thanks Australia! All of the cheeses were amazing but we knew we were travelling so much that we weren't going to be able to keep them cold so we didn't buy any. We did buy gelato using Paul's volume method : every gelato places sells pints. It is often (in this case it was) cheaper to buy a pint then to buy two small cups. We sadly threw away half the print when we realized the fridge in the back of the van didn't have any freezing capabilities.

We both passed out for the 2 hour ride back to our hotel and headed in to the concierge to see how he had screwed up our dinner reservations. In Australia they are all about confirming the crap out of stuff. They always want you to call 24/48 hrs ahead of time to confirm reservations for trips, dinner etc. We had asked the concierge to make a reservation at a dinner place he suggested tonight and confirm our reservation the next day. Instead he failed at both. Luckily the concierge we talked to today suggested Nicks seafood on Darling Harbor which was a short ten minute walk away.


I was really indecisive about what to order and the waiter didn't help much when he told us that their special was "bugs". We talked to him for a few minutes trying to understand what they were (some kind of shellfish we thought) but it didn't help much. We asked if they were like crawfish and he said "they are like bugs because that is what they are". We were intrigued so we got them as an appetizer. They are my new favorite thing. They are sweeter than lobster and less chewy.

We also had gotten a coupon to this place from our hotel for free glasses of wine which we picked up. At this point after wine tasting we weren't as in to wine as normally but they were a nice touch. Dinner was awesome and then we headed back to our hotel after strolling around Darling Harbor for a while.