ABOUT US
The Hunter Valley Wine Industry produces over 39 million litres of premium wine annually. This product is packaged and sold under Hunter Valley brands to over 50 countries worldwide and throughout the domestic market. The sales value of this wine is estimated at over $270 million per year with flow on affects of over $230 million. There are 125 wineries and over 6,000 hectares of vineyard situated in the Hunter which has been producing wine since 1830, and is Australia’s oldest wine region.
Over 2.8 million tourists visit the wine growing area per annum. These tourists are estimated to generate over $560 million worth of business in the region. The tourist market is catered for by over 120 cellar doors, a variety of restaurants, major golf courses, guest houses, resorts & Bed & Breakfast accommodation, and masses of infrastructure that allows for a complete tourism experience for the visitor.
HISTORY
Nick Bullied
The first road between Sydney and Newcastle was cut in 1826. Its course is largely followed by the Wollombi Road of today and you can still see many of the original convict-built features along the way. Road transport quickly opened up the Hunter Valley to new settlers, who found that the sandy loams of the river flats were suitable for many types of agriculture. These early land grants were developed as mixed farms and, although several planted grapes, winemaking was far from the principal activity.
No record exists of who planted the first vines. William Kelman is one of the main contenders. Kelman had married Catherine, the sister of James Busby, who had taken up a land grant of 2000 acres on the Hunter River between Singleton and Branxton in 1824, which he called Kirkton. Busby is widely regarded as the founder of the Australian wine industry. George Wyndham, who planted vines at Dalwood, near Branxton in 1830 could also have been the first. His first vines failed, but he persevered and made his first vintage in 1835.
Most early vineyards were planted north of the Hunter River between Raymond Terrace and Singleton. Lindeman was another important surviving name from that time, although his original vineyard does not. In the 1860s the centre of gravity moved south to the Pokolbin area where coastal rain and disease were less critical.
There was then a spurt of planting, with familiar names like Tyrrell, Drayton and later Tulloch and Mount Pleasant appearing. The area under vines had now grown to around 300 hectares, about a third of the vineyards in New South Wales. The next 40 years was to be a very prosperous time, with planting increasing rapidly, but fortune changed with the century.
Australian federation in 1901 allowed wine to enter the state free of tariffs and the Hunter found it difficult to compete with higher yielding regions, principally in South Australia. More pressures followed. Downy mildew arrived in 1917 from the USA; there was a rise in the popularity of fortified wines, which the Hunter could not make at the low cost required; and the great depression took money from the public’s pocket. Vineyard area fell to 552 hectares in 1936 and 187ha by 1956.
The turning point came with the foresighted Max Lake planting Lake’s Folly in 1963. Lake was followed by a rush of families and corporate investors with vineyards expanding into the satellite area of Broke Fordwich and into the Upper Hunter north of Singleton. Allandale, Brokenwood, Hungerford Hill, Peterson’s, Rosemount, Tamburlaine and Terrace Vale all appeared in the few years that followed.
In spite of 40 years of experimentation with new grapes varieties and wine styles, the Hunter has returned principally to the two varieties that made its fame in the early years – Semillon and Shiraz – along with Chardonnay, which had remained dormant for many years. These three varieties account for a large proportion of sales and completely dominate the awards in the annual Hunter Valley Wine Show.
The Hunter is now only a two hour drive from central Sydney; tourism, conventions and sport are now bringing more wine drinkers to the area than ever. In spite of corporate mergers and a few failures, there are now over 170 wineries and cellar doors to greet them, with close to 1.9 million cases of fine Hunter wine.
LOCATION & SIZE
The Hunter Valley lies about two hours drive North of Sydney and one hour west of Newcastle. It extends from the Cessnock area in the south to Scone in the North.
WEATHER
In many respects the Hunter is a curious place to grow grapes, yet in Semillon and Shiraz the Hunter makes two of the most distinctive and superb wine styles in Australia, in the case of Semillon, the best in the world.
Most soil types allow only low vigour and yields; rainfall is at a seasonal low in late winter and spring, exactly when you most want it; cyclones and upper air disturbances can bring moist tropical air to dump three months’ rainfall in a weekend over the harvest. Humidity provides a two-edged sword; it can reduce moisture stress, but it also encourages Botrytis and powdery and downy mildew. And yet the Hunter makes great wine.
The Lower Hunter around Pokolbin is a little wetter than Broke Fordwich and the Upper Hunter but is closer to the coast and benefits more from cooling sea breezes.
The Hunter is warm, even hot. However, temperature, within broad limits, has nothing to do with quality, but affects only style. Hot climates make styles of wine that cold climates can’t and vice versa. In addition to hot days, the Hunter has relatively warm nights when the physiological processes that ripen fruit can continue. The days are also quite humid, reducing moisture stress and allowing the leaves to keep their pores open longer during hot weather. This allows photosynthesis and growth to continue when, in drier air, it would not.
Altitude 75m Lower Hunter
250m Upper Hunter
WINEMAKING & GRAPE VARIETIES
In most respects, winemaking is kept relatively simple and differs little from other regions. It is largely about protecting the inherent quality of the grapes.
Semillon
Semillon is the stellar white variety in the Hunter, although it is currently less popular with consumers than Chardonnay and the trendy Sauvignon blanc. Semillon is at its delicate best when picked early to make a wine of ten to 11.5% alcohol and almost invariably has ripe flavours at low sugar concentrations. This is the style of wine that best responds to bottle- age, during which it develops outstanding lemon curd and toasty complexity and becomes barely recognisable from its demure beginning. The early ripening and picking also make this an ideal grape for a region where rain can disrupt the harvest.
Winemaking methods for Semillon in the Hunter have changed little over the last forty years. The grapes are generally harvested in the first week of February.
The grapes are crushed and pressed with as little skin contact as possible and the juice either cold-settled or filtered. The aim is to get a clear, bright juice with delicate flavours and low phenolics. Fermentation is in stainless steel tanks at around 13°C and takes about 10 days. The wine is then clarified, cold-stabilised and bottled early, typically in the May to July period following vintage.
Most companies release their semillons when only a few months old when they are crisp and lively with a light body and fresh, lemony and grassy fruit. A few keep some wines for bottle-maturation and release after five years or more when they have deepened in colour, become rounder and softer in the mouth and developed the most brilliantly complex flavours of vanilla and buttered toast.
Chardonnay
The Hunter gave the variety its impetus in Australia when Murray Tyrrell made his first Vat 47 Chardonnay in 1971. It rapidly became, and has remained, Australia’s most important grape. The styles of Hunter Chardonnay split roughly into three different styles. The first can be regarded as the most traditional - a wine with rich peachy flavour, distinct new oak and full body that’s suited to flavoursome food and close to its best when released as a one or two year-old wine. This wine is made with barrel-fermentation followed by a malolactic to add complexity and mouthfeel. The style has dwindled somewhat in favour of the other two.
The second style effectively seeks a tightening of the first, through picking a little earlier ageing on lees in barrel and avoiding malolactic. These wines are generally lighter in body, a little higher in acidity and retain their freshness well at around five years’ bottle age. The third is in response to consumer preferences for unoaked wines. It is fermented, like Semillon, in stainless steel, then bottled and released early with perhaps just a subtle level of oak to add subliminal complexity.
Verdelho
Verdelho ripens early in the harvest, so there’s usually little difficulty in getting very ripe flavours and a full body from high alcohol. The grapes have tough skins and handle wet weather well, although the result may be a higher level of phenolics in the wine. For this reason, winemakers often finish Verdelho with a slightly higher level of sweetness.
Verdelho is made using the same methods as Semillon, with the exception that it’s usually picked somewhat riper. It goes into bottle early and is usually at its best in the year or two after it’s made, when it shows ripe, tropical flavours. It’s easily appreciated flavours make it a popular variety for cellar-door sales.
Other white varieties
Viognier is proving a good variety for the Hunter, making a typically full-bodied and full- flavoured wine. Gewürztraminer, usually thought of as a cold area variety, often does surprisingly well in the Hunter, showing pungent lychee and rose-petal aromas. Riesling makes an occasional appearance, sometimes with very good results as a bottle-aged wine. Sauvignon blanc does not perform well, so winemakers usually source grapes from cooler areas such as Orange to blend with local Semillon.
Shiraz
Shiraz is undoubtedly the outstanding red grape in the Hunter. The grapes are typically picked from the second week of February and sometimes into early March. The fruit is crushed and destemmed and the must fermented in either stainless steel or open concrete tanks, usually with hand-plunging. Sometimes a cold soak before ferment is used. The must typically ferments at between 24 and 32°C for four or five days. Post-ferment maceration on skins is rare. When the fermentation is nearly complete, the wine is pumped off either into tank or barrels where the fermentation finishes, closely followed by malolactic fermentation.
The traditional style of Hunter Shiraz was made without new oak and the wines matured in large casks, typically ovals of 1000 to 2000 litres. While this style is still made, many of the best wines now mature in at least a proportion of small new oak, almost invariably French.
The typical young Hunter Shiraz is a medium bodied wine showing red and dark berries, spices and plenty of soft tannin. It is quite deceptive, as the best can age for a considerable time, more than their constitution often suggests. With bottle-age, it becomes much more complex, with earthy, leathery overtones and a beautiful perfume. It also acquires a silkiness and grace, becoming a smooth, wonderfully complex and richly flavoured wine.
Cabernet Sauvignon
Cabernet sauvignon is an enigma in the Hunter. Common wisdom has it that the wine shows harsh astringency, lacks natural balance and is often dominated by gum-leaf type characters rather than sweet blackcurrant fruit. However, the Lakes Folly Cabernets and some early examples from other companies have been excellent. What’s more, detailed research by James Halliday showed that Cabernet had a good reputation in the Hunter in the 1800s. It’s hard to reconcile this picture with current attitudes.
The winemaking differs little from Shiraz. Hunter Cabernet ages well in bottle, developing beautiful cigar-box complexity, but needs to start with good tannin balance, since the highly astringent examples simply stay hard and don’t soften.
Other red varieties
Merlot is of dwindling importance in the Hunter, although the best examples show the suppleness, fine tannins and leafy complexity typical of the variety. Occasional Pinot noirs have been excellent, but quality is sporadic and few winemakers now make the wine. Italian varieties are becoming more popular in the Hunter, Sangiovese being the most successful to date, although vineyard area remains small. Chambourcin is favoured by a few vignerons, as it is not susceptible to powdery or downy mildew – useful in wet seasons. It makes a dark- coloured, supple wine that appeals to cellar-door visitors, in particular.
Very broadly, there are three main soil types in the Hunter. The first is the red clay loam that appears on the hilltops and slopes. You’ll see this most clearly in the Lower Hunter on the Lakes Folly and Rosehill vineyards, on the slopes around Mount Pleasant, near the Tyrrells winery and on the upper slopes either side of the Wollombi Brook near Broke. In the Upper Hunter, they again lie on the higher slopes. Red soils are well-drained and provide a good medium for vines; these are where the best Shiraz is grown. On some slopes you’ll also find chocolate brown podsols which are also good for red wines.
You’ll find the third major soil type on the flats along the creek beds where grey sandy loams overlie white or yellow clays. Casuarinas are a good indicator for these soils and this is where whites grow best - mostly Semillon and Chardonnay. Look at Tyrrells’ HVD vineyard, the vineyards near the Cessnock airstrip including Mount Pleasant’s Lovedale and the vineyards close to the Wollombi Brook. In the Upper Hunter, these soils tend to be a little deeper and grade into black loams.
