Hunter Valley Wines: Newcastle's World-Class Wine Region an Hour Away

The Hunter Valley wine region, Australia's oldest wine-growing area and one of the country's most internationally recognised, lies 60 kilometres northwest of Newcastle through the vineyards of the Cessnock, Pokolbin, and Broke Fordwich sub-regions that produce the Semillon and Shiraz that have made the Hunter's name in Australian wine. The combination of the historic Lindeman's, McWilliam's, and Tyrrells vineyards whose operations stretch back to the 1820s and the craft producers who have established boutique operations on the valley's red clay soils, provides the wine tourism experience range that the cellar door visitor from Newcastle and Sydney uses for the day trip and the weekend getaway that the Hunter's proximity enables.

Hunter Semillon, the wine style that the region has defined and that no other Australian wine region has been able to replicate with the same combination of the lean acidity, the low alcohol, and the extraordinary ageing potential that transforms the seemingly austere young wine into the rich, complex, toasty aged Semillon that the collectors who cellar Hunter Valley Semillon for 10 to 20 years prize, provides the Hunter Valley's most distinctive contribution to Australian wine culture. The cellared Hunter Semillon is one of the few aged Australian white wines that commands the respect and the price premium that aged red wine typically monopolises.

Pokolbin, the village at the heart of the Hunter's tourism precinct, provides the cellar door concentration, the accommodation, and the restaurants that make the Hunter Valley day trip or weekend stay a complete food and wine experience. The heritage of the Hunter's established winery buildings, including the Tyrrells winery established in 1858 and still in family ownership through the fourth generation of the Tyrrells family, provides the wine history dimension that distinguishes the Hunter from the newer wine regions whose infrastructure is more modern but whose historical roots are shallower.

The Hunter Valley Gardens, the public and private garden complex at Pokolbin that provides the horticultural display and the event venue that non-wine visitors to the Hunter use, broadens the appeal of the Hunter Valley tourism product beyond the wine enthusiast to the family and the gardening visitor market. The gardens' event calendar, including the Hunter Valley Gardens Christmas Lights festival that attracts the families and the couples who want the light show experience in the vineyard setting, sustains the visitor numbers in the seasons when the wine tourism alone does not fill the region's accommodation.

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