Wine with a Sting

One of the signature places to visit in NSW is the Hunter Valley. Its roughly a 2 hour drive from Sydney - and is one of Australia's premier wine growing districts. Sid & Philip headed up there this past weekend with Philip's sister & brother-in-law, Jillian and Mick (all 6 kids stayed with Joan, their grandmother). An added incentive - Sting playing with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Hope Estate Vineyard (the "Symphonicity" tour). What a glorious night - a beautiful setting, Sting and the orchestra were in great form, a nice Estate provided hamper. OK, so it was also in the middle of a heat wave. 44 degrees Celcius that day (that's 111 F for those insisting on the imperial system)...Sydney had its highest minimum that night since records started. Sleeping without AC, was tough. But enough of that.

The venue, in the setting sun:


Sting himself (looking very buffed for his 59yrs [must be the tantric sex]):


With his symphony orchestra:


They even managed to close with a fireworks display (despite the total fire ban that day...due to the heat):


We met up with Mick's sister & brother-in-law & had a drink at a very funky bar at the Tempus Two vineyard:


The next day we hit some of the vineyards - first the tasting room of the Noyce Brothers (one of whom directed Salt, Dead Calm & other movies):


Lunch at the Wollombi pub, followed by more tasting at Undercliff:






The Hunter is a lovely place. Kind of like Napa, but more understated. They produce some of Australia's best wines - Semillons and Shiraz's in particular. And the countryside is lovely, again in a unique Australian way. Rolling hills, huge gum trees. Wollombi is interesting - it was where the "Great Northern Road" branched. This was a road constructed by convict chain gangs in the early 19th century (roughly 1820s-1830s), connecting Sydney with Newcastle and the Hunter, which then, as now, was an important coal mining site (as you can imagine, coal people & wine people sometimes conflict). To this day, a significant road from Sydney to the Hunter travels along the GNR, although the original cobblestones are mostly covered with bitumen.

Wine & Sting? Not a bad weekend.