This past weekend I went on a class trip to the Hunter Wine Valley, located about 2 hours northwest of Sydney (I think). We left on Sunday morning, and it was not looking like it was going to be a nice day.  By the time we reached our first stop, Tyrell’s Winery, the rain had decided to come out and play. We all darted inside to start our first tastings, and I was immediately overwhelmed as we tried wine after wine after wine- 9 in total I believe. If this is what the weekend was going to be like, I was not going to protest.

After Tyrell’s we headed over to get some lunch at the Hunter Valley Gardens, which we discovered (the next day) is a lot prettier and more pleasant to walk around when it is not pouring rain and mud is not oozing into your sandals. After lunch was winery #2, Drayton’s. Earlier in the semester we watched a DVD about how their winery had been devastated by an explosion that blew up a building and took away one of the Drayton brothers, as well as severely injured their winemaker Will. Despite what happened just a year ago, Drayton’s is back up and running and was an awesome tasting, one of my favorites. We tried everything from young Semillons (white) to a delicious rose to a fortified wine with the catchy moniker “Dr. Jurd’s Jungle Juice.”

Drayton's Winery

Entrance to Drayton's

The last winery of the day, Tempus Two was by far my favorite of the weekend. By the afternoon the rain had let up, the skies had cleared, and we were left looking out at this:

My life is terrible, I know.

Tempus Two has an awesome cellar door (store where you buy wine right at the winery- I wasn’t familiar with the term until recently), and we did a tasting of 13 wines in a private tasting room:

Private tasting at Tempus Two

Lots of yummy wines.

The bottling at this winery was also my favorite- check out the metal labels:

Tempus Two also had a “Smelly Cheese Shop” where a lot of people got baguettes and I tried some seriously intense bleu cheese, but didn’t buy anything because I had gotten some Cookies ‘N Cream fudge back at lunch…mmmmm.

That night we stayed at the Hunter Valley Mercure, which was seriously just awesome. Delicious buffet style pasta and pizza dinner, a free glass of champagne as a “welcome” and free wine at dinner, and then going to crash after our rough day of wine tasting here:

CANNOT EXPLAIN HOW COMFORTABLE THESE WERE

Gardens at the Mercure

The next day we started the day with a 10 a.m. champagne tasting at Peterson’s Champage House. The views were beautiful, and all the sparkling wines were delishh. This was another one of my favorites, especially as there was a chocolate shop attached and I snagged a couple of truffles on the way out. Here are some shots from Peterson’s (P.S. Pretty much all of these photos are stolen from Taryn because as a general rule, I am much too lazy to document my life.  Sad, but true.)

Peterson's Champagne House & Vineyard

Yummy crackers and cheese, but soon to be covered by nasty flies. I hate flies.

Trying to smell the "nose" of the champagne...I'm trying to get better at this.

Sam, Myself and Taryn

After Peterson’s was Tamburlaine, an organic winery where we tried about 6 organic wines. To me they taste the same, but it was interesting to learn about what goes into becoming an organic winery and growing the grapes organically. We even got to try a raspberry liqueur- and they gave us mud cake to pair it with! (Mud cake is basically like a fudgy chocolate cake, and it’s very popular in Australia.)

Next up was another lunch at the Hunter Valley Gardens and then Brokenwood Winery, where we did our tasting in the barreling room:

Brokenwood barreling room

After Brokenwood we quickly stopped at De Bertoli’s Winery to try a few wines and then it was back on the bus for the ride home. Not a shabby weekend, minus my pocket being a little lighter. I learned a lot and can’t wait to try what I bought!

Molly, Me, Lucy, Taryn & Sam at Brokenwood

Blog soon,

Lauren