James Wine Tours

James Wine Tours
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I dare say you are wondering why you didn't get an Email last night. Nothing to do with the run of incidents of the past, just a bad headache on my behalf. Yesterday was a James Wine Tours day. James is a gent from London who has lived in this region for 7 years and has completed a wine appreciation semester at TAFE. He knows what he is about and was a great guide for the day. Picked up at 9:25 am and after a few more stops picking people up from cottages and resorts we headed to the first winery, Iron Gate. Now this winery only crush 250 tonnes of grapes a year. Small in scale when you look at some of the others. But their wines were superb. They don't sell in pubs and bottle stores, but work on mail order and smaller restaurants. Because of the quantity made the bottle price is a little more than bulk wineries. From there to Briers Patch and again the a small concern and again wines you only dream about. By now my head was ready to explode and NOT to do with the wine because I was drinking plenty of water at the same time. I think the headache was a run on from last week and the jaw problems. So I had a couple and then sat out in the cool shade and closed my eyes and watched the stars clashing in the sky. Lunch was at an up market cafe and we had a tasters platter which was made up of olives, cheese, salmon, eggplant, semi dried tomatoes and rockett, It was lovely and filled the spot ready for the next tasting. At the Chocolate shop we shared marshmallows dipped in Belgium chocolate. You can nearly drink Belgium chocolate, it is so lovely. Helen also got some passion fruit fudge, which is yellow and looks like butter, but so smooth. The last winery was Savannah Wines and in the tradition of the Hunter all wineries make Semillon, but some are far better than others. One disaster the Hunter Valley had this year was the Shiraz grapes failing on the vine and whereever you drive you see row apon row of rotting grapes. They got too much rain just before the picking season. Some wineries are importing juice and some comes from the Stanthorpe region. A number of wineries have also seen the need to get into olive prduction, hence one of the photos. Fresh olives off the tree are soaked in barrels of brine for 12 months, then into oils or vinegar with spices in some cases. On todays trip we met some international tourists. Three from the UK who were in Australia for 3 weeks and had driven up from Sydney. Onother UK mother and daughter. Daughter is working in Sydney in banking and mum came to visit her and the other UK visitors are now living on Oman. Interesting couple and their 3 month son Harry. The husband is a RAF helicoptor pilot flying Pumas and has some 3000 hours up his sleve and another 3 and a half years yet to do in the RAF. The next two were from Old Bar which is near Taree and of course the us from "where" Rockhampton, where is that.