How to Survive a Wine Tour

I’m far from an expert on wine, most often choosing price over taste (cough, cough, Franzia). This is probably especially sad considering I’ve worked in bars and restaurants for the last year, constantly surrounded by quality wines. And did I mention Australia has some of the best?

With that said, signing up for a wine country tour was a no-brainer. I had a few days off work so I chose Oz Experience/Adventure Tours Australia’s $99 Hunter Valley day trip. At 7:30 a.m., I met my guide Smokey (given name, I kid you not), a mulleted Outback dude straight out of Crocodile Dundee, along with 15 other Scots, Brits, and Americans. There were only two males, so you could say it was more of a girlie trip.

The first stop was Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park, the second-oldest in the country and one of Sydney’s best-kept secrets. Our van approached a scenic bay filled with boats, perfect for a family picnic. The folks behind the Aussie hit show Home and Away must agree, because they film here often.

The park is nationally heritage listed for its 8,000 Aboriginal carvings. While we tried our best to avoid snakes and spiders, Smokey discussed how much he loathes Bear Grylls for provoking and killing animals all for the sake of television.

Next up was the Kalkari Discovery Walk, where it seemed they were putting on an Easter egg hunt of sorts for the kids. I chatted with some young British girls who were on a gap year, fresh from the beaches of Thailand, with the anklets and tropical diseases to prove it.

One American girl wasn’t exactly having a blast (I swear, it wasn’t me!), whinging, “I thought this was a wine tour, not a bushwalking tour.” Being on this tour made me feel like a tourist, which feels good once in a while, even though I’ve been living in Sydney for a few months.

After a stop at a lovely local cafe called McDonald’s, we started the hour-long drive to the Hunter Valley. It was rather bumpy and I thought I was going to fall out of my seat, but those seasoned British backpackers slept like the dead. For a minute, I wondered if they were dead.

When we finally arrived at Wollombi Wines, it looked like it could have been someone’s house and in fact, it was. Even though it was small in size, the winery produces over 18,000 liters of wine in a season. Kiwis Peter and Allyson Hoft acquired the place in 1992.

I was so excited to try some wines, even if I couldn’t tell you anything more than red and white. Allyson poured us a little bit of everything. My favorites were a sparkling shiraz (red champagne, you say?) and what they call a “white splash,” a delicious white perfect for a hot summer day.  We enjoyed sandwiches and tea and coffee before moving onto the next vineyard.

As an interesting contrast, our second stop was a bigger winery, Drayton’s Family Wines. Almost every field we passed belonged to them. The facility had a cafe, along with a huge bar for sampling all of their varieties, even though port is their specialty.

It’s not, however, my personal favorite, so I poured mine out. I loved the champagne and white chocolate liqueur, known as “orgasm in a bottle,” according to Smokey. I bought an unlabeled bottle of white for only $8.

So here’s the lessons I learned from my day of drinking:

1. Eat beforehand and enjoy all the cheese and crackers provided. Don’t be an amateur.
2. If you don’t like it, don’t drink it. If it didn’t agree with you on first taste, it definitely won’t on the way back up. It’s perfectly acceptable to pour out leftovers into the jug. No one will judge you for it.
3. Take advantage of surplus and unlabeled wines, which can be over 50% off retail.