Hunter Valley Wine Country

Guinness Beef Pie


The lone Irish pub among the 120 wineries

At the Hope Winery with our tour guide, Mr. Rowland

Overlooking the Hope Estate (Clapton and The Who played here last month)

Entering the Hunter Valley

Vineyards at the Hope Winery

Harvested vineyards at the Carindale Winery

Hermitage Estate Winery

At the Bluetongue Brewery - best microbrew in Australia

Tasting planks

Old man played a mean guitar

Home of Dragon's Breath chili schnapps

We spent the Saturday of Easter weekend in the Hunter Valley, home of Australia's wine country and about an hour's drive from Newcastle. The Hunter is known globally for their semilion chardonnay and shiraz. We were going to take a tour bus originally, but waited too long to book it. Fortunately, one of Drew's co-workers (Rob) offered to give us a personal tour of the Hunter Valley. Once you get into less populated areas, kangaroo and wombat-crossing signs pop up every few miles (think deer crossing in the states). We'll try to get pics of them next time we head out there.

We spent the day sampling all sorts of wines (for free of course). One winery, the Hope Estate, felt it necessary to market their wines to the American sector with catchy names. It turns out one of their red wines didn't go over too well in the south. They named it "The Cracker"

After the fourth winery (and about 20th wine tasting), we decided to switch it up and go to the Bluetongue brewery, home of Australia's best-selling microbrews (which it turns out was recently bought by a joint venture of Coca-Cola and Miller SAP; so much for staying independent - it seems that the big companies buy up anything popular nowadays). One observation: an ice cold ginger beer on a hot day freaking hits the spot. The final stop of the day was the Golden Grape estate, home to an absolutely potent liquor: chili schnapps (butterscotch schnapps infused with a few red hot chili peppers). For the first half second, it's delicious; after that - well, words cannot describe the burn. Don't worry - we're bringing a bottle of that back to the states so everyone can try it for themselves.