2024 WRAPPED AT WINE HOUSE
As the year comes to a close, we’ve taken a moment to reflect on 2024 and celebrate our top five House Highlights – the moments that truly defined this year!
1. Liz Silkman - Halliday Winemaker of the Year 2025. Pretty hard to top that! As the first Hunter Valley winemaker to win this award, it was not only deserving recognition for Liz' incredible talent but it made the entire Hunter Valley very proud.
2. New Winemakers in the House. This year we have welcomed so many new Housemates including our Young Guns, Charteris Wines and most recently Riggs & Wiggs. This label is the new folly of Iain Riggs and his mate Peter Wiggs. Iain was Chief Winemaker of Brokenwood for over 35 years and quite the Hunter Valley legend. We're excited to showcase his new wines.
4. France fought the Hunter, and the Hunter won! In July we hosted a fabulous long lunch with a showdown of Chardonnay and Shiraz from France and the Hunter. General consensus was that the Hunter beat the Frogs (definitely no bias in the room😉).
3. Another successful year of fundraising. We only do one sale a year and our Wishing for Wine Charity Wine Sale every June is always a big one. So far we have raised over $185,000 for charity and here's what our chosen charity, The Smith Family had to say: Wine House Hunter Valley’s support can provide practical, emotional, and financial support that empowers young people to harness education and to build skills to unlock their true capability.
5. New neighbours! In July, Meerea Park moved in right next door. Established in 1991, Garth and his team are just a short stroll (about 10 metres) from our tasting bar so be sure to leave time to visit Meerea Park when you next visit us.
Every wine in our collection is crafted by a family who owns and operates their business. No intermediaries, no shortcuts. This unwavering commitment to authenticity is what makes our wines truly exceptional.
We wish you all a wonderful Christmas 🎄and a Happy New Year 🥂🍾
Cheers, from all of us at Wine House Hunter Valley 😊
Dec 22, 2024 at 8:56 PM
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YOUNG GUNS IN THE HOUSE
This October Long Weekend, we'll be shining the spotlight on some of the Hunter's most exciting new talent! The Wine House has a long history of being a 'hothouse' for emerging young wine brands and this weekend will be all about Hunter wines, re-imagined!
🍇 What’s in Store?
Book your Young Gun Tasting and unearth the next generation's twist on tradition, crafting bold and exciting wines that are ripe for discovery! Plus, some of these rising stars will be making special guest appearances throughout the weekend, sharing their stories and passion with you!
🌿 Featured Wineries:
Thea Wines
Aeon Wines
Sabi Wabi
Glover Wines
Gunpowder Wines
Pokolbin Vintners
📅 The Details:
Young Gun Tasting available all weekend $15pp (free for Members + 1 guest)
On Saturday, we'll also have live music + delicious bites from our food truck 3 - 6pm 🍔🎶
Oct 1, 2024 at 1:00 PM
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Vintage 2024
Another year in the barrel, and what an interesting vintage it has been!
The lead up to 2024 vintage was warm and dry, and these conditions resulted in the formation of small berries and bunches. A wet and cool December turned into a dry and warm January, and this, combined with the small berries, resulted in super-fast ripening fruit. We had ripe sugar and flavours very early, resulting in us beginning our harvest on January 8th which was one of the earliest ever start dates in Margan’s nearly 30-year history.
In 2023 vintage we hadn’t even started picking Semillon until February. This year, by February, we had finished picking Semillon and were already well into picking the reds. As you can see, viticulture and winemaking are a very unpredictable business.
As mentioned, these weather conditions resulted in noticeably smaller berries. The benefit of this is that you gain wonderful concentration of fruit and flavour. For example, our white wines from this vintage are already exhibiting great flavour and texture. The reds from this vintage are now in oak and early signs show rich, powerful wines across all varieties. Keep your eye out for these as they move from the barrel to bottle.
Apr 16, 2024 at 4:18 PM
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Vintage 2023
Vintage 2023 is getting underway around the Hunter Valley. Most wineries have started to bring in their Chardonnay and Verdelho crops with Semillon and the alternative varieties to follow. There's no rule saying white grapes have to be picked before reds and the prediction is that a lot of low yielding Shiraz vineyards and early ripening varieties such as Tempranillo will come in before some of the Semillon vineyards.
It hasn’t been an easy growing season but the hot, dry weather in late December through January has saved the day. Vintage is an exciting time in the Valley with the buzz of tractors, harvesters and wineries busy around the clock. The many months of hard work in the vineyard comes to fruition as the baton is passed from the viticulturists to the winemakers.
Stay tuned for a full round up of #v23 when it wraps up at the end of March !
Jan 30, 2023 at 7:13 PM
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Big Weather
Many of our members reached out to us during the recent floods asking how it would affect the vines. It has been a rough year for many vineyard owners that's for sure. Some vineyards in Broke were completely submerged such as the Harrowby vineyard in Broke where Little Wine Co Albarino, Pecorino, Tempranillo and Barbera are grown. Where the river broke its banks there has been significant damage to the trellis systems and some vineyard rows were completely swept away into the Wollombi Brook.
Fortunately the flooding occurred when the vines were in their winter dormancy so there was no damage to any new season growth. We are now well into the growing season; flowering is complete and bunches have mini to pea size berries. For the first time in the Hunter, vineyard owners utilised helicopters to apply early fungicide sprays to the vines where it was too wet for tractors to enter. This is an expensive but necessary solution to give the vines the best start for the 2023 vintage.
And finally now for some good news! The weather has turned and we have just had two weeks of sunny weather - in a row! There is a definite air of cautious optimism buzzing about the Valley for the 2023 vintage so stay tuned!
Nov 9, 2022 at 4:39 PM
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New Look Tasting Area!
Our wonderful guests will be seeing some exciting new changes ... we have moved all of our tasting experiences into our beautiful Wine Lounge overlooking the lawns and lake!
We are refurbishing our tasting bar area (keep an eye out for some exciting news coming soon!) and so we will be hosting all of our Wine Experiences in the Wine Lounge.
You can select from our fantastic range of wine experiences including:
- Icon Wine Journey
- Hunter Uneartherd Tasting
- Wine Tasting 101
- Cocoa Nib Chocolate & Wine Tasting
And if you just fancy a glass of wine on the terrace you can book the Wine House Oasis. We look forward to welcoming you into this beautiful space on your next visit!
Mar 22, 2022 at 3:45 PM
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