Hunter
Australia's first wine area, warm and almost too humid for grapes — yet the home of an ace in the hole: sémillon as high in acid as wine gets, which ages into a honey pot of nutty, buttery fruit.
About the region
The most famous wine district in New South Wales — Australia's second-leading wine state after South Australia — is the relatively small Hunter Valley, 75 miles (120 kilometres) north of Sydney. The Hunter was the FIRST wine area in Australia, with vineyards planted at the beginning of the nineteenth century by the country's earliest European settlers, who had moved inland after their first vines rotted in the heat and humidity of the coastal penal colony. Around 1960 Penfolds moved to an area slightly north of the original vineyards, creating the distinction between the Upper and Lower Hunter. The whole region is something of an anomaly: being one of the most northerly of Australia's wine districts it is closer to the equator, its weather influenced by warm ocean currents from the tropics, and it is very warm and almost too humid for grapes. Nonetheless, and almost against all odds, several top chardonnays and shirazes come from here. But the Hunter's ace in the hole is sémillon — a wine that starts out bracing, limey, white peppery and as high in acid as wine gets; drinking it is like being slapped. With age, five to ten years or more, something startling happens: the wine turns into a honey pot of rich, nutty, buttery fruit. Great examples come from Tyrrell's, McWilliam's, Mount Pleasant, Hart & Hunter, Thomas Wines and Brokenwood.