Singlish | 
day 4 in sydney (hunter valley)
Another favourite check-out when in Sydney is the nearby Hunter Valley. Australia being an important wine producing country, and Hunter Valley is one of the major wine regions of Australia, naturally you go for a wine tour when in Hunter Valley.
If you drive, you theoretically can visit the wineries on your own and have free tasting. Lindemans, Rosemount, Wyndham Estate are some of the brandnames which you most probably have seen in supermarkets back home and their wineries are in Hunter Valley. But we didn't visit any of these (kind of wish we did, though). We signed up for a local wine tour which brought us to 3 small boutique wineries.
So the tour zipped around the region in a Toyota van. Not the best of comfort, but I realized you can't possibly manoeuvre around with a big coach. To add to the unique experience, there were no more seats behind and so I had to take the front seat beside the driver/tour guide. The tour guide made me "assistant tour guide", and I kid you not I got tipped at the end of the tour! (just so happened I was able to act smart on the topic of wines)
As a wine tour, logically we talked a lot of wines along the way. Like the concept of region, cork vs screw cap, shift in culture, etc. We visited the behind the scenes (I won't go wrong visiting the factory), learned the differences in process between red wine and white wine, wine appreciation techniques, etc. We ended up tasting about 30 different wines, and bought (only) 2 bottles back.
To top up the wine tour, we spotted some wild kangaroos!
While I think it was an interesting experience nevertheless, I find the wine tour not as spectacular as say Blue Mountains or even our DIY city tour in Sydney. Unless you are a wine lover, the day and money could have been spent elsewhere.
If you drive, you theoretically can visit the wineries on your own and have free tasting. Lindemans, Rosemount, Wyndham Estate are some of the brandnames which you most probably have seen in supermarkets back home and their wineries are in Hunter Valley. But we didn't visit any of these (kind of wish we did, though). We signed up for a local wine tour which brought us to 3 small boutique wineries. 
So the tour zipped around the region in a Toyota van. Not the best of comfort, but I realized you can't possibly manoeuvre around with a big coach. To add to the unique experience, there were no more seats behind and so I had to take the front seat beside the driver/tour guide. The tour guide made me "assistant tour guide", and I kid you not I got tipped at the end of the tour! (just so happened I was able to act smart on the topic of wines)
As a wine tour, logically we talked a lot of wines along the way. Like the concept of region, cork vs screw cap, shift in culture, etc. We visited the behind the scenes (I won't go wrong visiting the factory), learned the differences in process between red wine and white wine, wine appreciation techniques, etc. We ended up tasting about 30 different wines, and bought (only) 2 bottles back.
To top up the wine tour, we spotted some wild kangaroos!While I think it was an interesting experience nevertheless, I find the wine tour not as spectacular as say Blue Mountains or even our DIY city tour in Sydney. Unless you are a wine lover, the day and money could have been spent elsewhere.
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