The Hunter Valley is about 2 hours north of Sydney and is the regions biggest and most famous wine-making area. Hundreds of wineries, ranging from the tiny, family operated specialty company to the huge, international exporting winery. Now why, you may ask, would two people who never drink, much less drink wine, venture into a place that is only about wine? Because it's there! That and because everyone says, "You have to see it. It's a must do." So... we went.
I got us a room, at a very reasonable rate, at the Sebel Kirkton Park and was very pleasantly surprised by the accommodations. It started as a manor house, was a private hotel, then was purchased by the Sebel Hotel chain and is now a "resort" and conference center. Beautiful buildings, nice indoor poor done in a very Grecian style, excellent restaurant where we had breakfast, nice sized and well appointed rooms. Basically everything you can ask for in a place to stay. I never expected it to be as nice as it was given the price we payed. The only downfall was the air conditioner. More on that later.
Clarice looked over all the guides and booklets on the different wineries and we planned our route for the following day. I made sure that the Olive Company and The Cheese Company got included. Mmmmm... cheese. Then we got ready for bed and climbed in. Now, out bed at home (in Indiana) is what I call "normal" height off the ground. About a proper sitting level where your knees are bent and your feet touch the ground. Out bed here in Sydney is about 1/2 that height (if that) - more on par with what I picture Asian or Oriental beds and tables being height-wise - so we have gotten used to being much closer to the floor. The bed at the Sebel could have used a step ladder. Larry and Em Bishop have a bed that might be about the same height. I felt like I needed a rappelling harness and pitons to get into bed. But OH was it comfortable. That air conditioner though...
It was very noisy and drove me insane most of the night. I either turned it off and got too hot, or turned it on and couldn't fall asleep because of the noise. Around 2:30 I got some toilet paper and made ear plugs. No use. At 4:13 AM (yes, I CAN be that specific) I gave up, left it on and put a pillow over my head to deaden the noise. That worked. Finally. Too bad we were getting up at 7:30.
A very tired and admittedly cranky Jon ambled out with Clarice to breakfast at the hotel restaurant. There had been a conference that morning who had just finished their hot breakfast so the hotel put the rest out on the cold continental breakfast line to be finished off. Talk about timing! Clarice had pancakes and hot chocolate while I downed platefuls of food knowing that we would probably not get much for lunch and I'm obviously a "lightweight" when it comes to alcohol. Even though we were only tasting, I was driving after all. And I was making up at breakfast in food what I lost the night before in sleep.
We left at 9:30 and by 9:45 were at the first stop - Tamburlaine Winery. We wanted to start with a smaller, privately owned winery and go from there. A very nice gentleman dealt with we wine-idiots, and helped us select a nice bottle of Semillon to give as a Christmas gift. One of the things we learned is that the Hunter Valley is good for growing semillon, chardonnay, and syrah (used for shiraz wines) grapes. Every winery we went to had a Semillon variety as its top white wine. It took one tasting of a red for us to agree that we much preferred the sweeter white wines. We never did get back to tasting reds. Oh well.
By 10:15 we hit the Hunter Valley Olive Centre and Pokolbin Estate Vineyard. Now olive oil is something we know a bit about. Our favorite ever is Eskisi Gibi that we found on a trip into Chicago. Yes, we end up paying $32 a bottle for that stuff, we get 2-3 at a time and we love every drop of that stuff. Tastes like butter and is perfect for bread dipping - one of our new favorite past times. If the lovely girls that have been staying at our house want to use our stock, feel free of course, but don't waste it willy-nilly! That's GOLD you have there! So we picked up a couple of different olive oils (not Eskisi Gibi, but not that price either) and moved on to our next stop.
The last vineyard before lunch was McGuigan Wines. One of the larger wineries in the valley, they boasted of tours at 11:00 and 12:00 and we wanted to learn what we could about the wine-making process. All I knew going in I had learned from Mike Rowe and Dirty Jobs on TLC. Props to Mike (LOVE the show man, keep it up!) but I thought it might be good to get a refresher course from the pros. Too bad McGuigan's was re-doing their production spaces and the tours were cancelled until further notice. They did, however, have a couple of very tasty whites that we purchased. They also had The Cheese Company! Yay! Oh wait... This is fancy cheese. Bummer. Can I tell you how much I miss Wisconsin??? I'll never make fun of the cheese-heads again.
The next winery tour we had on our itinerary did not start until 1:30 so we decided to hit the Hunter Valley Gardens, a selection of shops and a huge gardens area specializing in roses. A wedding (well, at least one) was going on in their chapel so we decided to hit the shops first. Quaint little places my mom would just love. One, however, was the Ken Duncan Gallery. I had seen some of his photographs in other places, but let me tell you his work is amazing. His specialty is panoramic landscapes - something that I would love to get into. And he was in the gallery signing his new book!! We got the new book, a couple of smaller ones of his work, had him sign all three, and talked to him for quite a while. He is a Christian man who looks at his life's passion as a way of showing people God's creation glory. While we were looking around a high school aged girl who was very into photography came in crying with her excitement to meet Ken. He gave her some tips on photography then spent a good 15 minutes witnessing to this girl about the fact that what his shoots has all ben created by God and the importance of God in his life. Just overhearing that conversation was so encouraging! If I had unlimited funds I would have 2-3 of his photos up in my house. They are wonderful.
Well, after getting through the shops (and getting candy at the chocolate shop) we decided that it was too hot and sticky to walk through the gardens and we needed to get to the next winery in time for the tour.
Last winery we ventured in to - Tyrrell's. Another larger winery, they also had a good semillon and we got a bottle to give as a gift. Then we took the 1 hour tour with a very knowledgeable guide who could not stop talking about the details of the wine-making process. Very interesting! When the tour was over we headed off on a drive around the valley looking at the beautiful scenery. Grapevines everywhere!
Before we headed for home we stopped at an Australian Woodcraft Gallery and looked at all the wonderful things people are making with Australian timbers. Between the dark reds of the jarrah wood, to the deep ambers of the bloodwood, the shimmering silk wood and the color-changing purple gidgee - everything you can think of was being made of wood. We found a great big cutting board with two holes into which recessed a couple of pottery bowls. It would be perfect for dips and will be a regular on our table covered with breads and filled with oils! The main body is camphorwood and the sides (the handles) are made of a an amber jarrah that really complements the grains in the camphor. Great piece.
The we headed home stopping at McDonald's for dinner. Saturday was McHappy Day and proceeds of purchases were going to the Ronald McDonald House Charities. Well, that and Clarice will eat their fries!
It had rained Friday night and been beautiful all Saturday as we toured the valley, but as we left for home dark clouds loomed. I did not look forward to driving the two hours home in the pouring rain, but I never expected (or had ever before experienced) the golf ball sized hailstorm that hit.
WHACK!
Clarice - "What was that?"
Jon - "Probably just a really big raindrop."
WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!
Jon - "Ummm... that's really big hail!"
We managed to find cover under the awning of a gas station for the 5-10 minutes of serious hail, then left as the rain abated. We made good time home as the weather cleared soon after. Tired yet satisfied we decided that we would definately go back to the Hunter, but next time to play golf on some of their beautiful courses!
1 comment:
Sounds like a great trip. I just love reading your blog. It is like you are right her telling the story.
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