Day 1
Taking my freshly brewed coffee, I went and sat outside on the deck. The early mist was rising over the low mountain range, and the birds were deep in conversation. Strong wafts of eucalyptus were mingling with my coffee aromas. The very vocal kookaburras all seemed to find everything hilarious as the two grazing kangaroos took off into the distance.
This is why I come to the Hunter as often as I do. And is why I love it so much. The peace. The serenity. The complete removal of all the audible sensory overload I get living in the city. Each morning in the valley starts this way. Up early. Slowly sip the first coffee of the day, just sitting, and watching. And I breathe intentionally. Slow breath in. Hold it. Slow exhale. Hold it. And repeat. Something so simple, and so effective, keeping me in the moment. I am only 2 hours from home, and yet at Goosewing Cottage I could be a world away.
Not owning a car, having one for the weekend, on quiet roads, with no traffic lights, is a pleasure. The Hunter is a large place, made up of a few small towns, and without a car it would be difficult to get around. First stop this morning was the Sabor Dessert bar in Pokolbin. As we weren’t hungry, really not hungry, I thought we were just getting drinks. Imagine my surprise when a tasting plate of 6 cheesecakes was brought to our table. Well, now that they are in front of me, it would be rude not to try some. At least it would be a little lining in my stomach, as our next stop was a number (quite a high number) of vineyards. As you would expect from someone who has a burger spreadsheet, I also have one documenting all the wineries we have visited around the world. A quick check had me planning out the route for the day, ensuring we sampled some new wines, from some new wineries.
Following trips to Pepper Tree, Constable Estate, and Mount View, we finished up at Briar Ridge. It was here that we had a voucher to “be a member for a day”, meaning we got a private tasting, 20% off any wines we bought, and a half price antipasto platter. One of the conversations we had on the way up from the city was to not buy too many wines. The problem with this? It’s a very vague objective. I don’t do well with vague. How many is too many? By the end of the day we were up to around 24 bottles. You be the judge.
Brains. Let’s get straight into this. Specifically, lambs brains. You ever had them? Ever wanted them? Yeah, me either. Yet this is what I chose as my entree at dinner that evening. Bistro Molines specialises in French food, done with a Gallic flair. Enter the brains. Deep fried, basking in a river of garlic butter, and served with a sharp caper salad cutting through. I am always wanting to try new experiences, and push myself in all aspects of my life. This was a great opportunity to push my culinary boundaries. And what I had read turned out to be true. Quite a squishy consistency. Tofu like. And quite large portions. Perhaps I shouldn’t have kept cutting them in half, whereby they actually looked like brains. This only reminded me what it was that I was chewing. Yes, chewing. Was I eating the thoughts of the lamb? It’s memories? Good lord, it doesn’t bear thinking about.
Following a glass of local sparkling wine, erroneously called prosecco (since 2010 Prosecco is no longer the name of the grape, which is now called glera, but is geographical indication, in much the same way as Champagne) , we moved onto the main wine of the evening. The Majella Cabernet Sauvignon was an excellent choice and went terribly well with the whole meal. Not wishing to join me with the brains entree, Victoria chose linguine with pippies, not puppies as my autocorrect suggested, which was excellent. The puppies would have been one up, or would that have been down, from the lambs brains.
The evening at Molines was excellent, and somewhere I would highly recommend. Sweeping views out over the vines. Watching the day slowly morph into night. Multiple shades of green becoming a singular black. The service and the food is what you would expect from a restaurant that has had a chefs hat since 2010. We will definitely return, but I think I’ve had my fill of offal.
Day 2
Driving around the Hunter, visiting vineyards, we don’t get much exercise, let alone get anywhere near the daily target of 10000 steps. For this reason we took another early morning stroll around the gorgeous Mount View area. Sweeping fields of grazing cattle. Nervous kangaroos always on high alert. And this morning, a slate grey, very squat, very muscular, Staffordshire Bull terrier charging down the road at me. This raised the heart rate.
The heat was taken out of the situation when the owner shouted “he will kill you with kindness”. It turns out he just wanted to play. So we did. Our walk was only about 4kms, but enough to work up our appetites for breakfast.
Deciding to eat out for breakfast, for maybe the first time in the Hunter, we headed to Cafe Enzo at Peppers Creek which we had read good things about. Taking the last available table in the courtyard, sheltering from the blazing sun under a large parasol, we had a wonderful breakfast of free range scrambled eggs on perfect sour dough toast. Just the right amount of saltiness in the crust. The coffee was outstanding, and I followed up my double shot latte with a piccolo.
Quite remarkably, the heat continued to rise making even just walking tough. So we chose to stay in the car a while, driving around the Hunter, making a plan for later in the day. Following a stop for extra bottles of water at the general store in Pokolbin Village, we headed on to our first tasting of the day. Leogate was another new vineyard, but much the same story at all the others. Great wines.
Equally good tastings followed at Piggs Peake, Tintilla, and Mistletoe Wines on Hermitage Road, with us concluding our day at Mount Pleasant. We had planned to cycle around these vineyards, an activity that we usually see lots of people enjoying. For some reason, we hadn’t seen anybody “enjoying” it today. This was because at 42° you would have to be a masochist to want to pedal anywhere. So we decided to call off the planned ride. The easiest decision of the day.
The evening was spent avoiding offal. We had our traditional BBQ of easy to recognise meats, complemented by some of the excellent wine we had bought. How many bottles were we up to now? Was anybody counting? Let’s just say that we won’t be running out any time soon.
Sat, late into the evening, with a nightcap of Sullivan’s Cover single malt, from Tasmania, I was left reflecting on another excellent weekend, in the glorious Hunter Valley.
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