Tasting the Hunter: in the grip of the grape

There’s usually a time, late in Christmas holidays spent at home in Sydney, when we try to get away for a few days. In recent years it’s been a shopping trip to Melbourne or a beach holiday on the Gold Coast. It’s always difficult because, being the school holidays, our last-minute booking means the more popular spots have already been booked out.

Some years we’ve opted for the Hunter Valley. Being inland, there it’s easier to find good accommodation during the summer season. At these times, we’ve usually found the Valley to be tranquil with very few tourists.

Not anymore!

With CoVid-19 restrictions on travel, everywhere (including the Hunter Valley) is teeming with people from NSW, on holidays, with nowhere else to go but within our own borders. The pandemic has given local tourism a substantial boost as well as giving it a few challenges too.

While we did find accommodation at Casuarina, in Pokolbin which is a delightful boutique hotel with quirkily furnished themed suites and lovely grounds, it wasn’t easy, even with flexible dates.

The Love Boat Suite at Casuarina Estate

We rented the nautically-themed Love Boat Suite (ship’s lanterns everywhere). It was very comfortable with a loft/mezzanine (ahoy there) bedroom and another bedroom beneath the loft.  It also had a lounge room with French doors leading to a patio overlooking the vines.

As for dining, on none of the three days we were there could we get a table at any of our favourite restaurants (for lunch or dinner) even though we did try to book these some days before we left. We knew this may be the case as we were only in the Valley about two months previously and it was the same then – full: even on weekdays and nights.

Bistro Molines/Café Enzo – No room at the inn.

Luckily, we did manage to avoid the type of weather that makes inland Australia less pleasant than coastal Australia in high summer – the scorching heat. On this occasion it was cool and rainy – but not soaking rain, so it was OK.

WINE TASTING

The Hunter Valley is all about wine and wine tourism. What is it about growing grapes and making wine that is so much more romantic than say…wheat production? Ok, so that question is ever so slightly rhetorical – wine is luxury, wine is fun, wine signifies good times – wheat has none of those connotations, (does it?)

As for wine tasting, it’s so much nicer to go shopping for wines by tasting first but with over 150 wineries in the valley, how do you go about this?

Having been an avid wine consumer for more decades than I care to remember, I have made all of the classic mistakes of a novice wine taster – the most heinous of which is to try to taste every variety from every vineyard before you fall into an alcohol-fuelled coma.

Caution: Too many, don’t do it!

For the average person, especially the novice, there is far too much alcohol and information to take in at once by that method. And while I know you’re supposed to spit out the wine, I have never been able to. Apart from the general disapproval and revulsion of expectoration, it is that my aim is bad and there would always be the risk of it dribbling down my front – it’s hardly as if I get a lot of spitting practice in in everyday life.

There is also a syndrome that I discovered early on that I call “the grip of the grape.” This is where everything is tasting wonderful and you buy cases of wine with gay abandon only to wonder what you were thinking when you get it home and taste it again.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to come up with the point of inebriation where this syndrome is most likely to occur. In fact, sometimes it’s worse when you’re stone cold sober (and have been for months), on these occasions it could be that anything tastes wonderful. I’m sure you’ve all been there.

So, with all my experience of wine drinking and even wine tasting in some parts of Australia, I have managed to set myself some boundaries (and goals).

I am very choosy about the varieties of wine I taste.  I drink white wine – not exclusively, but usually.

Name your poison

In this category there are favourites which, for me, is (almost exclusively) chardonnay but there are also wines that I am ambiguous about – like the Hunter Semillon (which is what the Hunter is probably most famous for) and I will always taste any semillon that is particularly recommended – and that generally means ‘high end’ price wise. Sauvignon Blanc, on the other hand, is in the category of “you must be joking, I’m not drinking that!”

I never waste my daily alcohol quotient on wine I’m pretty sure I won’t like because I’m wise enough (most of the time) to restrict the daily quotient to a point well before I feel any adverse affects from alcohol consumption – and, these days, it runs out quickly. In fact, I keep the tastings down to two wineries a day and, given that the Hunter has over 150 wineries, I need to be pretty choosy.

It’s pure serendipity that my partner is the exact opposite of me, he likes the reds and knows the styles and the varieties he (and I) likes, so he tastes reds and I taste white – each one alerting the other if they find a wine that they think the other will like. That’s how I, a white wine drinker, came to be such a fan of the red wine of Savannah Estate.

Savannah Estate

I’d never heard of Savannah Estate, which is not surprising, there are many wineries in the Hunter that I’m ignorant of. This particular estate was introduced to me via the Peterson’s Winery.

There are not many wine lovers in NSW and even Australia that would not recognise the name ‘Peterson’. The family are the equivalent of Hunter Valley royalty – although they have vineyards further afield too – such as in McLaren Vale, Armidale and Mudgee.  

Their iconic Hunter Valley winery sits on a hill – Mount View – overlooking a valley resplendent with vines cascading down the hill and it is worth the journey up there just for the panorama. But not only…their wines are almost in a class of their own and, in the main, they are renowned for their chardonnay.  

Over time, since their first vintage in 1981, they have added to their presence in the valley with Peterson’s Champagne House that specialises in ‘bubbles’ and I believe they have a couple of dozen varieties to taste and buy there as well as a restaurant serving excellent food overlooking vines and ponds on the property.

They also have a large share in the old ‘Lindeman’s Ben Ean’ winery. It’s a large complex that boasts a tasting room, a large bistro (good food) and some shops and event spaces.

Lindemans Ben Ean Winery

More than 30 years ago, I remember tasting there at Lindemans – in their heyday when ‘Ben Ean Moselle’ was the preferred quaffer of most of Australia. At that time, they had just produced a single-vineyard red called ‘Limestone Ridge’.

All those years ago, the person assisting our tasting suggested we try it – they seemed unsure of the wine’s saleability and how well-accepted the wine would be. They needn’t have worried – we were blown away as was the rest of the market. It has become one of the most iconic wines of the Lindeman’s label along with their St.George and Pyrus – the triumvirate.

At the time, they’d priced it to sell at $6.99 a bottle – which, even in those days was stupidly cheap for such a great red. What a find!

It was though, not at Lindemans but at Peterson’s (on the hill) where we were alerted to Savannah Estate – that was around a year ago and, since then, we’ve become avid fans.

The winery owner is Savannah – that’s her given name – when you find out her surname is ‘Peterson’ then it all starts to make sense. She’s the daughter of Colin Peterson and the acorn hasn’t fallen far from the tree. Yet, that is not to say that, in her winemaking style, she is a clone of her father – but she has learned at the knee of the best.

Her red wines, in particular, are extraordinary.

At Savannah Estate

She uses red-wine grapes that are not well utilised in the Hunter like mouvedre and chambourcin and gets brilliant results – all these accolades from a non-red wine drinker. In fact, I’d say that her chambourcin is my favourite red wine – and you are reading someone who’s drunk her fair share of Grange Hermitage and some of the better red wines of Burgundy, Bordeaux and Chateauneuf du Pape in France.

Last time I was at her winery, I bought some ‘cleanskins’ (ie wines without labels) for which I paid $7.50 per bottle (by the case) – they were also extraordinary and I wouldn’t have been put off if these wines had been many times the price.

This time I bought some chardonnay from her and although I don’t think that her white wines surpass the chardonnays of her father’s, they weren’t bad at all. I’m dying to try a bottle with a meal – always the litmus test.

Savannah Estate has been a great find. Don’t go past it next time you’re in the valley.

Peterson’s Winery

Since their first vintage, Peterson’s has been making premium wines. As previously mentioned their ‘star’ is their chardonnay and they have around three different varieties ranging in price from around $20 to $50 for the iconic ‘Shirley’ chardonnay. At Peterson’s there is no such thing as a bad chardonnay – there’s just good and better.

A mouvedre by any other name

As for their reds, the dominant grapes they use are shiraz and cabernet sauvignon with a few others like zinfandel and mataro (a mouvedre by any other name) thrown in for good measure.

A formidable line up

Indeed their stand-out product (according to my red-wine loving partner) is their ‘Back Block Shiraz’ made from shiraz grapes sourced from the block directly at the back of their Mount View winery. It is only made in years where the winemaker thinks the grapes are good enough and their most recent vintage (2017) has sold out at $95.00 a bottle – a steal, I’m informed.

Brokenwood Wines

Brokenwood has gone from being a tasting room inside a small shed to a huge, purpose-built corporate property consisting of large tasting rooms, a café, terrace, restaurant, barrel rooms and who knows what else. Ironically, it sits beside (and dwarfs) the original tasting shed.

Brokenwood’s impressive new complex

I’ve drunk Brokenwood wine (especially the chardonnays) for many years now and was delighted when they expanded their horizons to the Beechworth region in Northern Victoria and started making chardonnays from there. There’s something about Beechworth fruit that makes chardonnay deliciously.

Chardonnays from Beechworth are arguably the best in Australia but often have prices to match. The Iconic Giaconda Estate Chardonnay (Beechworth) sold out their 2018 (latest) offering for $115.00 per bottle.

Brokenwood’s offering is priced at $66.00 – still a high price. Luckily, they have another chardonnay that is a mixture of grapes from various vineyards but a large percentage (I think over 80%) comes from Beechworth priced at around $20. I could taste very little difference between the two and certainly could not see that the former was three times better than the latter – not even nearly.

As for reds, there’s not often a time that we drink red wine from Brokenwood but last time we were there tasting we did come across a Beechworth pinot noir which was noteworthy – sometimes it just has to be a pinot noir and at around $35.00 a bottle it was reasonable.

The new find, this time, may just be the Rosato rosé.

Living in Provence for part of the year where the rosé is plentiful, delicious and cheap, I don’t expect much from Australian rosés although the French/Provençal style has been gaining popularity in Australia over a number of years now. It is why I declined to taste Brokenwood’s rosé (that alcohol quotient again) but I was persuaded by our knowledgeable  server and wine guide, Elaine, to give it a try.

Made with grapes from the famed ‘Graveyard Block’

Current Vintage

Now I’m no pushover, and I initially resisted until she told me that it had been made with the shiraz grapes from their ‘Graveyard Vineyard’ from where they source their fruit for their iconic ‘Graveyard Shiraz’ – the 2018 of which sold out at $350.00 a bottle. Apparently because of the weather conditions, the grapes had not been deemed good enough to make the shiraz this year – so they used it for the rosé. Well, under those circumstances (and at $30.00 a bottle), you’d have to taste it, wouldn’t you?

I think I liked it. I also suspected that, by this time, I was firmly in the grip of the grape so I bought just one bottle for now and if it’s as good as I thought it may have been, I’ll be ordering more.

Such a lovely way to…

If tasting wine is pleasant, in the Hunter Valley it’s made even more enjoyable by the characters you meet conducting the tastings – sometimes the winemakers themselves, sometimes their staff.

At Brokenwood, the infinitely patient Elaine handled my vehement objections to paying $25.00 per head to taste wines when I was not requiring the guided tasting of all Brokenwood wines and, with humour, defused a situation that could easily have lost them a customer (a good one – do you know how much chardonnay I drink?).

Instead, she treated me like a valued customer and allowed me to taste the way I like to – while making suggestions – like the rosé – that could easily mean that I add the rosé to my regular order – as soon as I get around to drinking the bottle I bought home in order to make a more sober assessment.  

The lovely Elaine from Brokenwood

She did say that with my specific preferences and objection to their (Brokenwood’s) marketing policies, I may have been the worst customer she’d had in a while and suspected I could be a ‘secret shopper’ sent in by her boss to test her. It was all spoken in jest and with good humour and we laughed a lot – although I do think she really thought I was a ‘secret shopper.’

Elaine asked that we give her a shout out when we were next in the Valley so she’d be ready. I don’t know what that means but I’ll do that – Elaine was a delight. (I suspect it could be so that she could schedule it as her day off.  Haha)

Then, at Peterson’s John the Pom, as he calls himself, was already shouting out a welcome as we were walking across the lawn to the tasting shed notwithstanding that he had a back room of tasters to worry about – a rowdy gang of around a dozen people. They were having a ball, egged on by John’s repartee and lubricated by the astonishingly good wines of Peterson’s Winery.

But it was Maree who led our tasting.

John the Pom and Maree from Petersons

These people are good country folks, but heck, do they know their wines. It’s almost incongruous: we are so used to the image of the sophisticated wine snob, dressed in his finery (and yes, it’s always a man) pontificating on the wine on which he is deemed an expert and yet…

…boy, did Maree know her onions (so to speak) and about Peterson’s wines she was almost encyclopaedic. What’s more she had many a local anecdote to accompany our wine tasting. We were thoroughly enchanted, with Maree and John, the beautiful location and the delicious wines. What a wonderful way to spend time?

At Savannah Estate it was no different and I remember our first visit and the delight of Savannah and staff that we loved their wines so much. It was the same look as a mother gets on her face when a stranger coos at her baby – and what a beautiful baby it is.

The steady pouring hands of the shy Curtis at Savannah Estate,

This time a new employee, Curtis, led the wine tasting and considering he had only been in their employ for a couple of months, his knowledge was impressive. I loved the generosity here, with cheese and biscuits supplied to nibble between wines.

It’s just not the same in wheat country, is it?