Wine Tour: Hunter Valley

Our weekend trip to Port Macquarie was cancelled due to over booking of our hotel. The disappointment quickly turned into excitement as we booked ourselves a one day wine tour of the Hunter Valley. For $92/person they picked us up in the morning, drove us the 2 hours to Hunter Valley, provided us with 4 winery tastings, a chocolate tasting, a cheese tasting and topped it off with a tasting of liquors. Of course, they also drove us the 2 hours back to Edgecliff. That is pretty good value for your money, especially for you Americans since the Aussie dollar is about .72 US.

The day started pretty bleak, it was "bucketing" and EARLY! The shuttle picked us up at 6.45AM in front of Edgecliff Station. We were the first to be picked up and the only people who were on time. If we would have known, we would have slept in for an extra 20 minutes! Also, Ron lost his favorite beanie somewhere along the way. This was not the best way to start off our trip. However, the weather began to clear as we made our way out of Sydney and we were able to get a nice nap in before we stopped for coffee. (Coffee always puts a smile on my face.

We arrived at our first winery, Tempus Two, and commenced drinking at 10.00AM. Then we made our way to Mistletoe and Tintilla. Keep in mind, I only consumed a muffin and coffee for breakfast and the wineries in Hunter are pretty generous with their tastings, therefore, I was highly impressed with my alcohol tolerance, showing just a hint of the Asian glow on my face. After our third winery, we stopped for lunch at Blue Tounge Brewery, where Ron enjoyed a paddle of beer (6 tastings of their microbrew beer) and finished off with a midi. I enjoyed a nice glass of water. :)

Next on our agenda was chocolate and cheese tasting. I have to admit, the chocolate was pretty lame. For really good chocolate, please refer to my blog "Chocolate Heaven". The cheese on the otherhand was amazing. So good in fact, that we actually bought some. I have to thank Corrie and Nine:Ten Restaurant for turning me on to cheese.

Our final winery was McGuigan's where they had a list of 33 wines and we tried almost all of them! Out of the many that we tried, we ended up purchasing 4 bottles. Not a bad ratio considering half our tour group didn't purchase a single bottle the entire day.

The last stop was to a liquor shop that I cannot recall the name of. We did however, try multiple schnapps and bought two bottles. 1 is similar to Baily's and I am very excited to try it in coffee. The other is called Dragon's Breath and is a combo of butterscotch schanpps and red chilis. It is sweet with a big kick at the end. You'll have to try it when you come visit.

We walked away with 5 bottles of wine, 2 bottles of liquor and a slab of really good cheese. The best part was that we were able to take a nice nap all the way home.