Skip to main content

Trips to the Hunter Valley

About this page​

Before 2023, I had visited the Hunter Valley once - for a Hens party. I do not remember much of these visits but I did buy some great wine. I'm disappointed that I didn't write down the places that we visited or the wines that I purchased. Therefore, this page is a blog about visits to the Hunter Valley: including the occasion, visits to some of the Vineyards and the wines that we enjoyed the most.

A trip to the Hunter to celebrate Matt and Lauren's wedding​

27-30 October 2023: The last weekend in October, we headed to the Hunter Valley for Matt and Lauren's Wedding. We drove up on Friday night, 27 October so that we could spend the whole Saturday exploring and visiting wineries. We left home at 5.30 pm, dropped Chip off at Michelle and Katie's and then stopped off at Hungry Jacks for a bite before setting on route to La Vigna Estate.

The drive was pretty bad. It was raining most of the way. I was so exhausted that I fell asleep in the car (Sorry Nick). We arrived at the house in La Vigna Estate at 9.30 pm, where Matt came to greet us and we went to the Bridal house for a drink, before deciding that it was best to go to sleep for the night.

A few notes about the place we stayed: La Vigna is located 375 Hermitage Rd, Pokolbin NSW 2320. It is a huge estate with at least 5 houses, each with their own pool/spa. On the property there is also a vineyard (we saw many many kangaroos) and a small but very pretty Brick Chapel. The house itself was a nice place, but less modern than somewhere you would typically stay. This place was pretty far from any shops or cafes, BUT it is close to wineries on Hermatage Rd. Each morning, Nick and I (and sometimes the guys) would go for breakfast and coffee in Huntley, at a small cafe called MeltDown. I rated it a lot, it had pretty good food and coffee.

Img caption. La Vigna Wine Estate

The wedding was on Sunday 29 October and we were planning to leave on Monday which left us only with one day to visit vineyards and have some alone time. Here is a breakdown of our Saturday based on the places that we visited:

Briar Ridge​

  • 593 Mount View Rd, Mount View NSW 2325

At first, we weren't planning to go here because I had been previously. However, Lauren's mum is a member and convinced us that we should go there because she "LOVES IT". Therefore, this was our first stop. We were one of two parties that were there, probably because it was 10.30 am. All the wines were pretty good, but we highly rated the Stockhausen 2023 Semillon and the 2022 Limited Release BDX. The BDX was a really heavy but tasty red! It was a blend of all different wines. We also tried some of the other cheaper varieties such as the Old Vines, which I had purchased in 2016. However, this wine was very flat compared to the others, with not a lot of flavour. I suppose my wine taste has developed since then! (Note, that we drank the 2016 Old Vine wine on our trip to Foster and it tasted amazing, I'm sure that age really helps it!)

Peterson Winery​

  • 552 Mount View Rd, Mount View NSW 2325

Not far away from BriarRidge, is Peterson Winery or "The Big Reds". Peterson Winery is one of several wineries that belong to the Peterson family. Since the Wedding in January, I couldn't stop thinking about the wine that I drank. Therefore, I said that we MUST go here. We spent about 1 hour here, trying the wines. The wines we drank were amazing. The lady who was teaching us about the wines served us a lot more than was prescribed. She gave us a few of the different Shiraz to try as a comparison. She was very knowledgeable and I think this is one of my favourite vineyards to date. We settled on three wines:

  1. Block one: 2018 Shiraz
  2. The HUnter Valley Shiraz 2019
  3. Mudgee Region Cabernet Savignon 2022 Vintage.

However, there was one other wine that was pretty amazing but we talked ourselves out of buying; the sparking shiraz. It was so different, but oh so good. Too bad that bubbles hurt my tummy.

Wombat Crossing​

  • 530 Hermitage Rd, Pokolbin NSW 2320

This vineyard is very small but very beautiful. It was located literally down the road from La Vigna. When we first arrived, I was amazed with how green it was here. At the time that we arrived, there was only one other couple there, so we were in and out within 45 minutes. This vineyard is one of the only single-grape vineyard - where they use the grapes that they grow only. They also donate a small portion of the wine tasting fee to Wombat recovery.

The wines were pretty amazing as well. The owner was also very knowledgable and answered all of my questions very well. We bought three more bottles:

  1. The Creak Flat Semillon 2016
  2. Vigneron's Reserve Sparkling Shiraz 2018
  3. Hermit's Block Shiraz 2021.

Note: in the previous post, I did say that I can't drink sparkling... but this wine was just too good to pass up!

Img Caption. Leaving Wombat Crossing Vineyard with a box of wine, and feeling a little bit tipsy

Bimbadgen​

After Wombat Crossing Vineyard, we really were kind of overloaded with wines, so we headed back to the house, put the wines in our room and then went with Matt's mum and dad to Binbadgen for lunch, where we had a delicious woodfired pizza and a few beers. We socialised until about 6 pm, then headed back to La Vigna. I had a very large headache. Til this day, I don't know if it was because I only drank 1xcoffee or whether it was from the wine. The days following, I made sure to have at least 2 coffees per day; and the headache did not come back.

In the evening, we went over to the bridal house for a bbq and then headed to bed around 10 pm.

The wedding at Squires Vineyard​

  • 62 Squire Cl, Belford NSW 2335

On 29 October 2023, Matt and Lauren got married at Squires Vineyard. It is a very small homestead like place that is not so much a winery but just a venue. I expect that they sell their grapes to local wineries but do not make wine themselves.

The morning of the wedding was very relaxed. We had breakfast, 2xcoffees and maybe around 11am, I started to get ready. By 1 pm, the groomsmen (incl. Nick) were taking photos by the Chapel. Following, we rode in the wedding cars to the venue. I felt so lucky that I got to ride with them to the venue!

Img caption. In the wedding car (left) & at the venue before the ceremony (right).

We waited around for half hour before the service started at 3 pm. It was a hot day, but the outside area was shaded by the trees. It was actually so amazing and everything turned out so perfect for them. A family of kangaroos even showed up and watched from a distance!

The "cocktail" hour was literally a cocktail hour, where they served aperol spritz and lemon spritz. The photos and bridal party were close by so I got to hang out with Nick and friends for a while. The bridal photos only went for about half an hour.

When we sat down, the tables were shaped in an E. They sat me right next to Nick, which I liked because I didn't really know anyone. Once we sat down, two speeches were read and then we ate. It was a shared foot platter - which was so amazing and different. Not long after, everyone vacated the room. The venue folded all the tables up, and then the room turned into a dance floor! Such a great use of space. I think it forced people to socialise, dance and not sit at the table all night. When we were allowed back inside, they switched the glasses for plastic cups so that everyone could drink on the dance floor (so smart!!).

Img caption. Table layout (left) & outside for the sunset (right).

While we were outside, the rest of the speeches were said. What I loved most about the speeches was that both Matt and Lauren said a speech together.Following, the cake was cut. The cake was 3-tiers & 3-flavours; and they served the mudcake. It was great mudcake!!

The night flew by so quickly and before we knew it, it was 11 pm and time to go home. I have a funny story about that night which may be a little inappropriate to post so I will try to write very subtle. There was an incident involving projectile red wine all over our bed, which smelt pretty bad. We moved beds for the night and spent Monday morning cleaning it up.

By 11am, we were on the road back to Wollongong with a pit-stop to pick up Chip. I missed that boy.

A trip to the Hunter to celebrate Michelle and Katie's Wedding​

19-23 January 2023: In January 2023, Nick and I headed to the Hunter Valley for Katie and Michelle's wedding (Nick's bestfriends). I remember a lot of what we drank and we bought several bottles home with us. This experience was really enjoyable and the wine we drank was very nice. For the five days, we stayed in Nulkaba at the Fletcher house, which was across the road from The mighty foghorn brewery. One of the days, we had lunch at Iron bark brewery. I really liked this place, they served delicious pizza and beer.

Here are a few vineyards that we visited:

Lucy's Run​

  • 1274 Wine Country Dr, Lovedale NSW 2325

20.1.23 Lucy's run was one of the first Vineyards that we went to when we arrived in the Hunter. It was run by a husband and wife, both who had a lot of knowledge about wine. The lady and owner of the vineyard even joined in with us on the drinking! She was an awesome person, but it was a bit of a worry that she was drinking the same amount as us. Well it's not up to me to judge her, I do love how much she loves wine though.

They run off a farm and the owners are big believers in adopting animals from the RSPCA. Many of the wines are named after their pets. It was a very comforting and homely vibe that I received from the owners and the small vineyard. She also provided us with some cool details about wine making and recommended us different locations based on our taste in wine.

Finally, they offered us a platter with various dips which were quite amazing. We wanted to buy 6 of the 2014 wines but ended up leaving with just two (with the idea to buy more later). The wines that we chose we thought were at least 4-5/5.

  • The single barrel 2020 #Shiraz 4/5.
  • The 2014 #Shiraz. We opened this on 14 October 2023, when we went out for dinner at RockSalt, Menai. This wine was really nice! I rate it also 4.5/5.

Tintilla​

  • 725 Hermitage Rd, Pokolbin NSW 2320

20.1.23 On this day, we also visited Tintilla for a cheese platter and wine. I did not enjoy this place as much as others, mostly because the person in charge of wine-tastings did not really provide us with much information. It took a very long time for them to serve us the wines, despite it being reasonably quiet. Nevertheless, we still had a nice time.

Peterson House & the wedding​

  • Broke Rd & Wine Country Drive, Pokolbin NSW 2320.

21.1.23 On the 21 Jan 2023, Michelle and Katie got married at the Peterson House in the Hunter Valley. It was a really wonderful day. The Vineyard was really pretty place to be married, with the reception inside, in a brick building.

The wedding was really fun, the wine was really amazing. I can't stop thinking about this wine. For starters, I do not like sparkling wine, but I was drinking the bubbly rose all day! It was so delicious. However, my biggest mistake was moving to red's too late in the evening. The moment I tasted their Shiraz, I was in love. It was 100% 5/5. It was a mistake to start drinking this too late as I only had 2 glasses before we had to go home.

Piggs Peake​

  • 697 Hermitage Rd, Pokolbin NSW 2320

22.1.23 The Piggs Peake winery was the last place that we visited. This was not so much a vineyard but they sourced grapes from around Australia and made their own wine from it. It was pretty crafty and had more of a brewery vibe to it.

The wine sales guy was quite young and didn't really share much information or knowledge with us. Non-the-less, the wine was relatively cheap so we bought two bottles: A Pinot Noir and a Shiraz. The Pinot was drank that evening/afternoon and the Shiraz was saved for a time in the future that we want to drink it. :)

I think one of the coolest things about this place was the wine glasses. We were very close to buying 2, but I quickly said no as they were $25-$30 each! $60 couldv'e afforded us 2 more bottles of wine. Wine>>>>>>glasses.

Hungerford Hill​

  • 2450 Broke Rd, Pokolbin NSW 2320

22.1.23 The day after the wedding, we headed to Hungerford Hill Vineyards. It had a more classy vibe to it and it was definitely one of the bigger wineries in the area. I wasn't sure how I felt about it when I first arrived.

When we were seated, there was no-one around. The guy shared a lot of information with us and let us try 15 different wines, he even opened some of the more expensive ones for us.

We learned a lot about the wines in the area and we even had some deep chats about his life as a security guard before moving into the wine sales industry. Of all the wines we tasted, I rated one 6/5:

  • Sweet Hermitage 2005 Shiraz: We bought this bottle which costed us $95. The most I've ever spent on wine to date! My mouth is watering as I write this short review as I am excited for the day that we open it.