The best thing of the Hunter Valley is that in all the wineries, you can taste several wines for free. At the different locations you will often find merchandise items as well, but in most places the area is full of wine bottles and a counter with a few, very friendly sellers behind it. First you look around, but after a few seconds there is an appealing question: how can I help you? Which one would you like to try?

You get a wine card, and if you are in a small group, one of you will say what he or she wants to try first. You all try this wine, and then of course all the shyness disappears, and everyone wants to try his favorite. Of course you don’t have to try all the wines and usually a few is enough. You have to take into account, that you will probably visit more wineries on the same day, and you can taste wines in each of them.

If you do not know much about wines or wine drinking, “no worries, mate”! All the sellers are very friendly and keen to help or give some advice, not to mention that the main goal of these wineries is to SELL! After all, believe me, after a day spent with tasting wines in several places, you will have a feeling for tasting wine, and know what your favorite is.

To start with, taste some light and clear white wine, than some of the more tastier red wines - maybe a rosé in between -  and at the end a sweet dessert wine, like tokay, port, etc. There is a big sense in doing so, because one wine influences the taste of others. And at the end you will feel the taste of sweet raisins more in the heavier wines. Sometimes people are only curious for red or white wines, or dessert wines. In that case the usual response of the sellers is a kind of very friendly question, whether you are sure you do not want to taste something else before that. That is just because they want the best for you… You do not need to drink all the wine in your glass, so you can pour it into the metal bowl used for this purpose. They are sort of organised for the drivers as well, they cannot drink too much of course…

Yes, the drivers…Unfortunately they are definitely the biggest losers of the day. They are the persons who can not drink but probably would like to taste much more than the `lazy` and shy passengers. But they can not, or maybe just a little bit from the best wines.

So during the day, everybody is tasting wines and chatting happily, and usually everybody is getting a better idea which wine is better, in which wineries and why, which one they like, which one is their personal preference etc. If you have some money and are keen to buy some bottles, no doubt, the sellers will recognise this…They keep asking you whether you like the wine you are tasting at the moment. They tell you more and more about a wine they think you liked, and start to offer you some similar bottles. And of course you like when they are friendly with you, don`t you? So you will tell them more about yourself or what you like, which is a good base to get somewhere. And the interesting thing starts when you tell them that you maybe want to buy some bottles of the nice and clean Semillon. You can notice how much more other interesting wines they will show you to try, and of course these types are not on the list…You come from Hungary? …(two minutes)…what about this light and sparkling dessert wine? Or this Tokay?…

Believe me, you will not forget these happy moments in Hunter Valley, and you can drink your bought wines later at home as well, of course))))

PS. You should try Semillon (white wine) in Hunter Valley, and Shiraz (red wine), because they are really famous here. One `normal` bottle of wine is about 20-30 AUD, but they can be really expensive as well, of course. Usually a bottle of wine here contains more alcohol than the ones in Europe (especially in France), with approx. 1-2 %point.

Do not miss the Semillon and Seafood Festival this year (17^th to 19^th April `09)!

Or at least check out the official Tourist Information Website for Hunter Valley!

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Three weeks ago, on a sunny Saturday, we were standing behind the counter of one of the more than hundred of friendly and famous vineyards in Hunter Valley. It was our second journey to this area: this time we went with our parents(-in-law), but the previous occasion was last May with our great Spanish friend. In May, winter here began to kick in (yeah, with its 15-20 Celsius degrees during the day..), and now it was the end of the summer. Therefore it was interesting to see how nature and the atmosphere changes in different seasons.

About the location…Hunter Valley is about 150-200 km north of Sydney, which takes two or three hours by car, according to the speed limits. The most interesting and famous part of this wine region is the so called `Lower Hunter`, which is surrounded by the towns of Cessnock, Kurri-Kurri, Singleton, Broke, Wollombi and Pokolbin. This part of Hunter Valley is very famous because of its vineyards, grapeyards and many entertaining events that bring enormous amounts of tourists here. You can find here `more than 60 restaurants, 120 vineyards and 160 places for accommodation`. But in my opinion, these vineyards are rather some kind of promoting and sales-supporting, nicely furnished places - very modern, trendy, or even traditional-. So if you expect some very old, stone-built cellars under the ground, you should know that it is not that kind of place. It is for business, for hospitality, for tourists, and for building the world-wide known big brands.

The best thing in these vineyards, that you can have a look at their wine cards, and taste the wines, several in every places, for free!! You can visit as many places as you want and are able to, until they close at 5 pm. Bad luck though if you are the driver (((

You will find this area really nice and friendly, with its green hills, sheep and other animals on farms, and you will see a lot of grapeyards, olive trees, and so on. The vineyards are very close to each other: if you go by car, you can stop every two or three minutes at one of them. They have clean and big car parks, and sometimes they are in the neighborhood of a cheese-, olive- or chocolate factory, where you can taste some other delicates, too. If you want to have a picnic with your friends or family, it also will not be a problem, because there are lots of bbq and picnic areas as well.

It is worth entering the Hunter Valley from the Cessnock direction first, because there is a large information centre about the Hunter Valley. It contains all kinds of information about the region: vineyards, accommodation, restaurants, entertainment, etc. You can get a very useful and free map about the region, containing all the vineyards and other locations, and there is a large amount of other brochures and booklets, prospects, not only about H.V., but also about the touristic sites in whole NSW. You can find there really useful and free maps as well.

We asked them for some information about picnic places in the area, and the lady gave us a sheet of paper that contained all the bbq places and also the guided tours and timetables. It was really practical, and we decided to visit the one-hour tour at Tyrrell`s vineyard, where 5 dollar per person was a really fair price for it. The funny thing was, that before the tour began, all participants had to sign a paper to make sure that they are over 18 years old, didn’t matter whether they were only 20 or 60+.

Ps. If you are interested in the famous aussie
`big things` -like Big Banana, Big Pineapple, Big Guitar, etc.-, visit Singleton, here you can find the World`s biggest Sundial, and Pokolbin, where there is a Big Wine Bottle. Unfortunately, we just missed it, because we did not know about them before going there…(((

(to be continued)

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