I had another early start this
morning as I was getting picked up at 7am from Sydney Central to go on a wine
tasting tour in the Hunter Valley. I was met by our driver Bill, and after we
collected the rest of our group from various places in Sydney, we started the 2
hour drive to get to Hunter. On the way there we passed through the town of
Cessnock, which we were told is one of the oldest settlements in Australia.
The first winery we went to was
called Capercaillie. We tried loads of different red, white and rose wines,
which we had with cheese and crackers. My favourite was the Hunter Valley
Merlot. I had won loads of awards, so I bought a bottle of it to take home. We
also had a glass of champagne, so I was already starting to feel the effects at
11am!
The next vineyard was
called Lambloch Estate, where we tried another 8-10 wines. I can’t remember all
of them individually, but I know I liked the Moscato and Semillon.
We all got back in the
bus and drove to the Hunter Valley Chocolate Company shop. There were so many
different kinds of chocolate, fudge and toffee, it was hard not to buy it all! I
ended up with a couple of bars for gifts but was very conscious of how much space I
had left in my case.
After the chocolate shop we
drove to the Hunter Olive Centre. We were each given a bag of bread pieces
which we could use to try different kinds of olive oil, chutney, jam and chilli
sauce. I found a garlic olive oil I really liked and also a mango and
passionfruit jam. I will definitely need to buy another suitcase! I was dared to try the extra hot chilli sauce, which I did. It felt like my mouth was on fire.
We had a really nice
lunch in the Small Winemakers Centre and drunk a lot more wine. We then
traveled to the main winery of our tour which was McGuigans. I have tried
quite a lot of their wines at home, but we got to taste around five that you
could only buy from the estate. We also got to try some really strong desert
wine, although they weren’t allowed to call it port. It was around 22% so
really strong.
Next to McGuigans was the
Hunter Valley Smelly Cheese Shop, which I looked around. I wanted
to buy some Stilton but it wasn’t practical to carry round with me :(
Our final winery of the
day was Mount View, which had stunning views of the Hunter Valley. We took
loads of photos and then went in for our last tasting. We tried around 7
different wines. My favourite was definitely the Chardonnay! I wanted to buy
another bottle but there was no way I would fit 3 in my suitcase.
We then started the drive
back to Sydney. After we had been drinking from 10am that day, everyone was so
tired so most people on the bus fell asleep straight away, including me. I was
one of the last to get dropped off so met James at around 6.30pm.
James drove me back to
his place and we had dinner at home. I was so exhausted from the wine tasting
that I didn’t want to go out again! I pretty much went to bed straight away.
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