Hunter Valley
Warm, humid
Australia's oldest wine region, north of Sydney, known for long-lived, low-alcohol dry Sémillon.
Overview
About Hunter Valley
The Hunter Valley in New South Wales was first planted in the 1820s, and is the oldest wine region in Australia. It is unusually warm and humid for fine wine, and the grapes ripen with rain often falling around harvest.
Its great contribution is Hunter Sémillon: picked early, low in alcohol at around 10 to 11.5%, and bone-dry when young, but capable of developing toast and honey flavours over a decade or more. Shiraz is the leading red.
Hunter Valley is marked on the map.
Australia
Shaded: New South Wales. Map units are states, provinces or départements, so a smaller place appears as the larger area that contains it.
The land
Climate & terroir
Climate
Warm, humid
Hot, humid summers with a risk of rain at harvest, but a maritime influence that can moderate the worst of the heat.
Terroir & soils
What the vines grow in
Alluvial loam on the valley floor, and volcanic and red clay soils on the slopes of the Brokenback Range.
Go deeper
Rules, years & producers
Tyrrell's
Pokolbin; a family estate famous for Vat 1 Sémillon.
Brokenwood
Pokolbin; noted for Sémillon and Graveyard Shiraz.
Mount Pleasant
Pokolbin; a historic estate founded by Maurice O'Shea.
Tulloch
Pokolbin; a long-established Sémillon and Shiraz producer.
What's grown here
Grapes
Each grape's page links back here.