The Hunter Valley is unquestionably the best known and most highly prized wine region in NewSouthWales. Its most famous wine style is its distinctive Dry Semillon, while Shiraz, is also long-established. It is also regarded as a pioneer of Australian Chardonnay.
Hunter Valley Semillon
Semillon was first planted here in the 1830s.
Hunter Valley Semillons are renowned for their ability to improve with age. The better examples develop in bottle for more than 15 years.
Classic examples are made simply from early picked fruit and bottled Young, with Alcohol levels between 10 and 12 percent. The wines start out with a fresh, grassy, citrus taste with tangy Acidity.
However they evolve into Golden wines with nutty, honeyed notes and a luscious mouthfeel. Though unoaked and not having undergone malolactic fermentation, they can be mistaken for oaky chardonnays, even by experienced tasters.
The valley's relationship with Chardonnay is 100 years shorter, but no less significant. It was here that Australia's first Chardonnay was made – from vines planted by the Tyrrell winery of Pokolbin in 1968.
White muscat is a white grape variety of Greek origin. Present in several Mediterranean vineyards, it has several synonyms such as muscat de Die, muscat blanc and frontignac. In France, it occupies a little less than 7,000 ha out of a total of 45,000 ha worldwide. Its young shoots are downy. Its youngest leaves are shiny, bronzed and scabrous. The berries and bunches of this variety are all medium-sized. The flesh of the berries is juicy, sweet and firm. Muscat à petits grains has a second ripening period and buds early in the year. It is moderately vigorous and must be pruned short. It likes poor, stony slopes. This variety is often exposed to spring frosts. It fears mildew, wasps, grape worms, court-noué, grey rot and powdery mildew. Muscat à petits grains is used to make rosé wines and dry white wines. Orange, brown sugar, barley sugar and raisins are the known aromas of these wines.
white wines from the region of Hunter Valley go well with generally quite well with dishes of rich fish (salmon, tuna etc), shellfish or sweet desserts such as recipes of skate wing with caper butter, scallops with chorizo sauce or very simple muffins.
On the nose in the region of Hunter Valley often reveals types of flavors of citrus, tree fruit or citrus fruit and sometimes also flavors of tropical fruit, cream or beeswax. In the mouth in the region of Hunter Valley is a powerful with a nice freshness.
