What I drank this weekend: Pinot Noir (of course)

I was once told that the best Pinot Noir comes from either Burgundy in France or Marlborough in New Zealand. This is due to the climate and soil as Pinot Noir tends to like cool climates.

And since then, I've been a bit of a snob about it and tend to only buy my beloved red from those regions. The same with Sauvignon Blanc.

However, recently I have started to stray into trying different regions. Don't get me wrong, I love the light and earthy taste of a Marlborough Pinot Noir, but lately I've been trying some from South East Australia and Oregon.

Oregon is cooler than most Pinot sites in California and so tends to produce a lighter wine more similar to the Burgundy and less fruity and punchy than those from Sonoma. I have particularly enjoyed drinking the Underwood Pinot Noir from Marks and Spencer. At £13 a bottle it isn't cheap, but I think worth every penny. It doesn't have the smoky, mushroomy taste of some Pinots but its fruity and full of ripe cherries and raspberries and of course violets.

Now, when it comes to Australia, I'd generally be inclined to buy a Shiraz or a Cabernet. However, the South Eastern region can be cooler and I've recently become a fan of the Telegraph Station Pinot Noir. Made exclusively for Tesco it is half the price of the Marks and Spencer Pinot Noir at £6 a bottle. And it is delicious. Again, not mushroomy like the Burgundies but bright and fresh and full of raspberry and black cherry. In fact, it has recently been awarded a  International Wine & Spirit Competition Quality Award IWSC Bronze award.

So, if you're coming to visit me over my birthday or Christmas, feel free to bring either of these two reds. They are both great, but I think the Marks and Spencer wine is the winner. So, I'd be especially pleased if you brought this.

Slurrp sensibly and that :) 

16 tips for flying with a baby

As you may have read from my previous blog posts I recently flew to Australia from the UK with my 12 week old baby. 

We really struggled to know what to take with us for the flight, especially as we didn't have much hand luggage allowance for our baby (with Etihad, we only had an additional 7kg allowance). Before I went I asked from some advice from friends and family as to what to take and I had some great suggestions, so thank you very much.

Unless you have a dream baby (which we don't and none of the other babies on the flight were that easy!) then flying long haul is not going to be easy with a small baby. So I thought I would share with you what we found really helped and hopefully this will help someone else travelling soon.

1. Don't get too stressed if your baby doesn't sleep

Finally asleep on his Dad

At the age of 12 weeks, my baby had only slept in the quiet, warm, familiar surroundings of my bedroom. Then, suddenly he was thrust into an unfamiliar place, with a constant background hum, people walking past the whole time and intermittent banging from the trolleys and people going into the toilet. There was just too much going on for him to properly settle. 

On the flight from Heathrow to Perth, he didn't sleep in his bassinet at all. He either laughed when I put him in there or screamed. It just didn't feel like his bed. In fact, he only really slept on me or my husband for a couple of hours at a time. On the plane next to us was this woman who was getting increasingly irate at her 5 month old baby for not sleeping. She kept shouting at him and shoving a dummy in his mouth. It was really upsetting for her, the baby and everyone around. 

Yes our son screamed and got overtired, but we tried our best to stay calm and to keep him as calm as possible. In my experience, shouting at a baby does not work! In the end, he was fine and we were fine and it actually meant he slept really well when we arrived in Australia. 

Yes I am still awake

2. Forget about the routine
At home, we are pretty rigid about when our son goes to bed, how frequently we feed him and how long he naps for. However, this all went out the window on the flight. I probably breastfed him about 20 times!  I say, do what you need to do to calm your baby. 

3. Do something to help your baby's ears pop
I got lots of advice about breastfeeding my baby at take off because the swallowing naturally helps them to pop their ears. The problem on the Etihad flight was they were really insistent on him sitting on my lap, strapped in and facing forward. On other flights, I found the stewards to be less rigid and I was able to turn him around and feed him. Whatever you are able to do, try to get him swallowing. So breast feed if you can, put a dummy or a bottle in his mouth or get him to suck on your finger. We did this and the air pressure didn't seem to bother him too much.

4.  Don't lug your whole change bag up and down the plane every time you need to change your baby 
Changing a baby on a flight is a nightmare. There are only certain toilets that have baby changing facilities (you are not allowed to change your baby at your seat) which means there is always a queue at these ones. Once you get into the toilet, the changing table is the smallest, slipperiest thing you will ever see and the plane keeps moving. Our baby wriggles when he is changed and I had to grip him to stop him from falling off. And, then the air pressure does something strange to a baby's insides (we were warned about this). I won't go into to detail, but he basically we went through quite a few nappies. 

Our Pacapod with its handy
 compartments

Rather than lugging your change bag to the toilet every time and then rummaging around for a nappy, wipes, change of clothes and change mat for your baby, decant a small amount from your large bag into a smaller one. Our PacaPod change bag was perfect for this because it came with two small bags inside. Someone suggested pre filling nappy bags with a nappy and two wipes. But trust me, you might need more than two wipes and you might well need a change of clothes for him. So a small selection of items in a separate bag worked well for us. 

5. Don't forget a change of clothes for yourself

As I said, the air pressure did something funny to our son's insides. Suffice to say, both my husband and I had to change clothes. And, I'd dress comfy - let's be honest, you're not going to get upgraded when you have a baby.

6. Bring a variety of clothes for your baby

We found that some flights were warm and some flights were cool and so we needed different clothes to suit the climate. Plus the pressure thing effecting his insides. Basically we changed him about 6 times!

7. Pack some bedding

The air stewards did supply us with a blanket for the bassinet (one of the adult ones folded). However, I would recommend bringing some lightweight sheets or Muslins to put inside the bassinet as well. It's quite scratchy material and the familiar smell if your own sheets might help your little one feel more at home. We also put our baby  in a 1 tog sleeping bag when we put him down so it was more like bed at home. Also, the plane was pretty bright at times and the lights often woke our baby up. So if you have some thin scarves or Muslins to hang over the bassinet, that might help.

8. Take something to keep your dummies sterile
A friend of mine told us about a dummy steriliser you can get from Milton. You have to get the steriliser prepped before you go and it you can then use it to sterilise dummies for up to 24 hours. It's a really useful place to keep your dummies and means they are always clean when you want to use them. It also clips onto the side of a bag.

9. Load some music and white noise onto your phone or MP3
Because of the constant hum from the air plane, we found that we could play music and white noise to our baby while he was in his bassinet without it really bothering other passengers (well, no-one complained!). Our baby always has his lullabies playing when he sleeps, so we felt this helped calm him and feel more like he was at home.

10. Get your baby used to a sling before you fly

My son asleep in his Close Caboo 

at Abu Dhabi

We had to change planes at Abu Dhabi and we were really grateful that we could just pop him in a sling to walk around the airport. If you have an older child, Abu Dhabi actually has strollers you can hire, but they don't give you your own buggy back during transfer. My son hated his sling at first and it took me a while to get him used to being constrained for any period of time. So I used to wear my Close Caboo round the house and he soon got used to sleeping in it. This meant that when we were at Abu Dhabi for a couple of hours, he literally slept the whole time so we had a break from entertaining him (and he slept!). 

11. Keep hold of your buggy as long as you can

My son as he travelled through

 Heathrow airport!

Once you get on the flight, you only have two options for things to do with your baby. You either hold him or you put him in the bassinet (you can't put him on the floor for instance). So to save your arms, I would recommend you hold onto your buggy until you get to the gate at the airport. You can check your buggy in with your other hold luggage and it means it all gets loaded onto the air plane at once. And, it is a bit of a faff getting to the gate and having to arrange with the stewards for the buggy to be loaded onto the plane. But the stewards are used to it! Our baby slept while we wheeled him round the airport and it was a real godsend not to have to carry him.

12. Pack some Calpol
There were some points on the flight when our son screamed. And he couldn't tell us what was wrong and maybe he was just frustrated. But with the constant noise, the lack of sleep and the air pressure affecting his ears, he might just have been screaming because he was in pain. So pack some Calpol or other pain relief for your baby, you might find it really useful (the air steward actually offered us some calpol at one stage when he was really going for it!). 

13. Remember their favourite toy

Our son's toy trying

 to cheer him up

You can't pack loads of items in your hand luggage because you'll find there just won't be space. But a couple of items to help distract them might give you a bit of relief. We brought our son's favourite pirate toy, a soft bunny and also some black and white baby shapes books which we showed to him while he was lying (awake!) in the bassinet.

14. Change the scenery if you can

As I said, you can't always tell why a baby screams. Sometimes I think my little one screams because he is bored or frustrated and I'm pretty sure that was part of the reason for his screeches after about 14 hours! We found walking up and down the plane really helped to chill him out. Especially if there were friendly people who stopped for a coochie coo. Even standing in the food preparation area gave him something else to look at which seemed to help. 

15. Share the load

I was really lucky that I was travelling with my husband. So I could pass the devil to him when my tether was met. It also meant that he could hold him while I ate. I ordered a special meal because it meant my food arrived before my husband's. So I could scoff mine down while he held the baby then hand him back before his arrived. 

If you are flying with Etihad, they also have these Flying Nannies. They didn't do that much for us. But on the return flight, the lady sat next to us was flying with her daughter on her own. And the nannies held her baby when she went to the toilet and also when she was getting her sky cot ready. Also, you'll be surrounded by parents in the same position. So if you need help, just ask.

16. Sleep when your baby sleeps

Realistically, you're probably not going to be able to watch back to back movies on the flight (although to be fair, my son did stare at Frozen without squawking for about half an hour). And, if you're lucky enough to get your baby to sleep in the sky cot, you're probably better off getting some shut eye rather than trying to watch the latest film release. I actually downloaded a book to Audible on my iPhone and listened to that on the flight. It kind of drowned out the noise while I was walking round with him... Does that make me a bad mother?

I hope you found these tips useful. It'd be great to have your feedback. Have a great flight and just remember it will come to an end and you don't have to do it again... Oh, apart from on the way home. 

Using a sky cot on a Virgin or Etihad flight

When we booked our flights to Australia through Dial A flight, we managed to secure sky cots on all our long haul flights. They are generally available on a first come first served basis, so it is worth booking your flights early if you can. Sometimes though, they are only allocated at check-in but our contact, Robin, at Dial A Flight really went the extra mile to confirm that we definitely had bassinets on all sections of our journey. 

Although we knew we had bassinets, it was difficult for us to find out beforehand how big the cots were and how exactly they worked. So, during our flights to and from Australia, I took a few photos which hopefully someone will find useful as research before they fly.

You can generally request a sky cot if your baby is under 10 months old or weighs under 10kg. If you are lucky enough to secure sky cots, you will automatically be placed in the bulk head seats. This means that you have a bit more leg room, but it also means that you will be in a row with other parents with small children.

Our baby wearing his seat belt

The sky bassinet is only put up once the plane has taken off and the fasten seatbelt signs have been switched off. The steward then comes and clips it to the wall and you can then put your child in it. If the fasten seatbelt sign then comes on again, you have to take your child out of the bassinet whether they are awake or asleep.

During take-off, landing and turbulence, your baby has to sit on your lap and wear a little seat belt that fastens to the adult belt. On the Etihad flights, they were very insistent that the baby must face forward but on our internal and international flights with Virgin, they were less concerned.

The sky cot is made from standard seat material so it is pretty scratchy. The stewards do put a blanket in there, but it is just an adult plane blanket folded up. So we put our own sheets in there so it would be more comfortable and would smell familiar.

Our son with the flap zipped up

Once the baby is in the sky cot, there is a little flap that has to be zipped up at all times. And, on all the Etihad flights, they were pretty insistent about you placing your baby with his face heading away from the aisle. They didn't seem concerned with this on the Virgin flight.

The sky cots on the Virgin and Etihad flights were pretty much the same size and shape. The only noticeable difference was that the one on the Virgin flight was hung quite a bit lower on the wall than the one on the Etihad flight. We much preferred this because on the Etihad flight, we had to stand up to check on our baby and also, it was so high that I struggled to put our baby comfortably in there (although I am 5ft 2!)

The bassinet on the Etihad flight.
A useful place to store things
when the child is not in there!

Both were quite roomy for our 12 week old baby. But I think if you had a 9kg child, it would be a pretty tight fit.

Another difference was that nearly all the sky cots on the Etihad flights were directly below an information television screen which cast quite a lot of light onto the baby while they were in there. In fact, on all our flights, there was quite a lot of light shining into the bassinet which made it difficult for our baby to sleep. A friend had recommended we took a scarf or Muslin with us to drape over the top to give them a bit more shade. We did this and it definitely made a difference.

The sky cot on the Virgin flight,
Quite a bit lower than on Etihad

If you know your seat numbers, it's worth taking a look on Seat Guru to see where on the plane your seats are. Quite a few of the bulk head seats are by the seat preparation areas which are naturally quite noisy. If you find your seats are there, I would recommend you ask to change if you can because otherwise you'll have the noise of the stewards preparing the food and chatting to each other as well as trolleys and people bashing past all night long.

All in all, our baby didn't really sleep that much in the bassinet. For the most part, it was just too noisy and there was too much going on. On the flight to Australia, we could only get him to settle for any long period in our arms. However, I'm really glad that we had one because it meant that we could at least put him down giving our arms a rest and it was also a useful place to store things when he wasn't in there!

Flying to Australia with a baby - I think we might be mad

In a few weeks time, we are flying to Australia with our 12 week old baby boy. 

I've flown to Oz four times previously. And each time, I have been completely inebriated the whole flight as it's the only way I can cope with the boredom and also knock myself out enough to sleep. One time, I actually fell asleep under the departure signs at Heathrow and nearly missed my flight. And another, I got off at Singapore and could not for the life of me remember where I'd put my passport. 

This time, however, I will be stone, cold sober. Not only will I have a small infant to look after but I will also be breast feeding. Oh and he has colic and reflux which means he throws up significant amounts following a feed and sometimes cries uncontrollably for no apparent reason. 

My husband and I enjoying a few drinks on a previous flight

We are flying with Etihad and they have assured me that we have a bulk head seat with a bassinet for the baby. But we have really limited carry on luggage allowance for him (just 5kg) so we can't bring all of the luxuries that he would usually have at home. This 5kg has to include change of clothes, nappies, cotton wool, baby wipes, dummies, blankets, toys and all the other things a child would usually need in a 24 hour period. 

This is all I can find on the Etihad website about what happens on board with the bassinet http://www.etihad.com/en-gb/experience-etihad/family-travel/prepare/. And this is the only image I can find of a bassinet on an Etihad flight, but this baby is much bigger than mine and I can't see the whole bassinet: http://baloneks.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/micaiahs-first-airplane.html

Frankly, although I can't wait for my holiday, I am dreading the flight. 

Will I be able to play him his little bedtime tunes on my iPhone? Will I be able to play him my white noise app if he starts screaming? What if he drops his dummy on the floor, how will I sterilise it? Do I need to bring bedding for the bassinet and if so, what size? What if he won't sleep in the bassinet and I have to carry him the whole flight? What if my fellow passengers hate me for having a child that sometimes screams uncontrollably for hours for no apparent reason? 

If anyone has any advice or guidance for me on what they have found useful on long flights with babies I'd really appreciate it. Or if anyone has flown with Etihad and can give me a bit more information about what I'm allowed to do on the flight or how big the bassinets are, it would be a massive help. 

Wine I've drunk this weekend

Since I've drunk lots of delicious wines this weekend, I thought I would take a break from wittering on about weddings and share them with you. Plus, one of my friends came round my house recently and complained that she'd been on my blog to try and find a wine I liked to bring round to supper, but couldn't find any. So, Caroline, this one is for you!

The long wine whiling weekend started with a visit to the only wine shop in the village, Salisbury's Cambridge Wine Stores. We originally went to get some Limoncello. But when they didn't have any, we ended up spending £70 on wine instead!

I love buying wine from proper wine shops. You get that extra bit of help from the staff who genuinely know about wine. Plus, there is usually a more varied selection of unique wines rather than the standard selection sold at many of the supermarkets. On Saturday, Cambridge Wines was full of middle aged men talking guff about wine. However, one of them have us a tip on a delicious Argentinian Malbec and he was not wrong!

La Chamiza Malbec from Cambridge Wines

He recommended La Chamiza Polo Amateur 2012 Malbec. The bottle claimed that, many years ago, the Chamiza Estate was a land of polo horses. But now they grow wines that reflect the polo horse because it is generous, equilibrated and passionate. I'm not sure about all that, but it was delicious!

I think it cost us around £7 which we thought was pretty good value since it was so nice. It was quite a dark, purple wine and tasted of cherries and strawberries with a hint of mocha coffee. It was dry but also velvety smooth. We had it with curry, but would be a perfect wine to have with a burger or lamb steak on the BBQ. 

I've mentioned my brother on here before as he is a proper wine snob and he got me onto wine tasting. As a thank you for organising a recent ski trip, we bought him a bottle of Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 2004 Il Palazzone from Cambridge Wines. He keeps telling me I should upgrade on the wines for the wedding from Chianti Classico to a Brunello but the budget won't stretch yet (sorry, had to mention the wedding). The Queen had it at her wedding apparently, so if it was good enough for her...

We didn't drink the wine as it apparently will be better in a few years. So when he does try it, I'll let you know if it was worth it!

The same brother picked a wine from Dad's wine cellar to drink with our bank holiday BBQ. To say it is a cellar might be stretching the truth somewhat, however, he does have a selection of 30 or so wines under the stairs at his house. My brother picked a rather tasty Shiraz from Majestic with a slightly tasty price point! Dad thought he'd paid around £20 for it, but it looks as though it is currently retailing at £30.

The McRae Wood Shiraz

As an Australian Shiraz, Jim Barry's The McRae Wood Shiraz from the Clare Valley is pretty full bodied. Bottled in 2004, the wine has spent a few months in oak and has a nice well rounded taste of fruit and spice as ell and lavender and liquorice. We had it with sausages and burgers but would be perfect with any red meat dish. Not the cheapest of wines but if you have a special occasion or want to impress someone, this would be a good choice.

A while ago, we went to the Wickham Vineyard which is near to Southampton in Hampshire. It's lovely there and I would definitely recommend a visit. It's about a 20 minute walk from Botley train station and set in beautiful countryside. You can do a little tasting, do an audio tour of the vineyard and buy local produce. Plus, they have a beautiful restaurant which has only recently opened that looks out over the vines.

Me wine tasting at Wickham Vineyard

We bought a bottle of Wickham Celebration Rose 2010 when we were there. We were saving it for when my friend Natalie came round. But she was too slow and it was drunk this weekend! The bottle claims it has "intense strawberry, raspberry and red currant flavours". However, I think it is more subtle than that description. It's actually a fairly, dry and light rose and not too sweet as some roses can be. 

You don't seem to be able to buy it via their website but maybe you can still buy it in the tasting room at the winery. I think it cost around £10 at the time. We enjoyed it with a Marks and Spencer Millionaire Shortbread biscuit but I think it would go with most things, maybe even a light pasta or chicken dish.

The view from the restaurant at Wickham Vineyard

Also this weekend we enjoyed the following yummy wines all of which I would highly recommend:

• The Ruins Organic Pinotage Bon Cap 2010 which cost around £9 from Cambridge Wines
• The Macon Villages 2011 which cost around £9 from Marks and Spencer
• The Barossa Shiraz 2010 which cost around £10 from Marks and Spencer 

So that was some of the wine I drank this Bank Holiday Weekend. Yes, I am off for a detox now. Someone bring me the Milk Thistle.

What no Wifi in Sydney?

When I travel, I find wifi a real life saver. My ongoing obsession with social media means that I sometimes wonder if there is any point in doing something unless I can tell people about it on Twitter, Facebook or Four Square.

This applies triple fold when I go on holiday. I'm convinced that my adoring followers will be utterly bereft and lost without my constant updates (yes I do know I live in a dream world). In addition to this, as the iPhone now offers free messaging and FaceTime over the internet, access to a wifi network can significantly reduce your costs when abroad.

This metropolitan city has few wifi spots!

Although the cost of using the Internet abroad has decreased recently, especially with products such as Vodafone Passport which gives you a limited amount of data when travelling in certain countries. However, if you can tap into a free wifi network, it costs you nothing, and you're not limited to a certain data use each day.

Most tourist destinations have cottoned onto this. I recently went on holiday to Santorini in Greece and nearly all of the bars and restaurants offered free wifi and advertised this on their boards and menus. It makes sense to me as, I would be more likely to go into a bar where I can access the Internet for free, and I would probably check into the bar on Four Square and maybe load up some photos of me at the venue, giving them free advertising.

However, on a recent trip to Sydney to visit my brother, I was surprised to find that this was not the case there. I received no free data on my Vodafone phone tariff for Australia and within the first day I had racked up over £10 worth of SMS and data charges. So I was keen to find some places where I could take advantage of their wifi. To my brother's great dismay, I then embarked on a desperate endeavour whereby every bar or restaurant I went into, I would ask if they had wifi, and the answer was repeatedly "no".

View from Top Deck Cafe, one of the places with free wifi

It seems so strange to me that such a busy tourist destination as Sydney does not offer this in more venues. While I was there, someone mentioned that wifi and broadband are expensive and slow in Australia. So maybe that is why more places don't offer it. This may be true as many of the places that I found offering access to wifi limited the length of time you could use it or the amount of data you could download. On top of this though, most insisted that you logged in with a certain amount of personal details before you could used the wifi, and many of the wider schemes in operation were currently in a test phase, which indicates to me some caution around the open use of wifi.

So I thought I would let you know about some of the places I found that did offer free wifi. I hope you find this useful:

• all Mcdonalds in Sydney offer free wifi. To access it, you simply have to ask for the wifi code when you purchase your food or drink
• you can just tap into at the top of the stairs outside the Sydney Opera House
• if you are travelling by train, then the station at Circular Quay in Sydney has wifi for all travellers, you just have to log on and provide some personal details (although I believe this is a trial)
• many of the Sydney ferries have free wifi. You have to travel in a certain section of the boat, log on with your personal details, you then have a certain amount of data to use. I took the ferry from Circular Quay to Manly which takes around half an hour and used all my allowance just checking into Four Square and uploading a photo
• Sydney Airport currently has free wifi that is sponsored by one of the travel companies. Again, you have to log in, but with a huge amount of personal details, including flight number and flight time. The log on also kept crashing so it was a bit frustrating but I got there in the end
• many libraries in Sydney offer the service. I regularly tapped into the one in Balmain, which again asked for some personal details
• if you can cope with all the people and the smell, the Sydney Fish Market has a pretty quick and easy free wifi service. I found a glass of Sauvignon Blanc helps
• if you are in Balmain, the Top Deck cafe does a good coffee, has a vew of the Harbour Bridge, and also free wifi
• in Rozelle, the Bean cafe has good grub, but a pretty slow wifi service

View from the ferry to Manly with free wifi

I went to Sydney in January 2012, so this list was up to date then. If you have any other places you would like to add to help other travellers, then please leave a comment below. Or if any of the places stop their wifi service, then again, just let me know below. I would love to hear from you.

I like this one, no this one ....

One of my favourite holiday past times is going wine tasting. I fancy myself a bit of a wine connoisseur and love going to vineyards and pretending that I can taste grass or green or mumbling knowingly about legs and good years. I suspect however, that it all ends up like an episode of Absolutely Fabulous. Me as Eddy or Patsy in a tasting room in France, completely paralytic, snorting and pointing to glasses saying "this is the one, no this one, no this one."

So over the years, I've pushed open (fallen through) the odd cellar door, and I thought I would write about a few of them here. These are not necessarily recommendations, rather they are a collection of experiences, from around the world which I hope to substantially add to over time.

Canava Roussos Vineyard, Santorini, Greece
September 2011

We went to this vineyard following the recommendation of the rather handsome barman at our hotel, Hotel 28, Kamari. If I'm honest, there are probably vineyards in Santorini that have more spectacular views. Santo Wines for example has a much more picturesque vista and I met a couple who got married there and the photos look spectacular. However, Canava Roussos was within walking distance of where we were staying in Kamari and it was owned by the family of the hot barman.

The Vineyard claims to be one of the oldest in Santorini, and uses many of the traditional methods of wine making they have for over a century. If you are after a glitzy, and polished experience, this probably isn't for you, however there was no hard sell and it felt like a very relaxed and earthy experience.

From Kamari, you reach the winery by walking up a long, dusty path past all the white washed buildings and blue and white churches you would expect in Santorini. The vineyard itself is small, has a nice tasting area dripping with vines and grapes, a small amphitheatre and an area where you can view the barrels and traditional production methods.

They offer two types of tasting, dry and sweet and I obviously did both! Each had four varieties of wine and cost a few euro. Santorini is known for its dry white wines, the most famous of which is which is often blended to make a Nykteri wines. This is perfectly suited to my taste as it is very dry, but has a distinctive and slightly misleading honey, sweet smell.

I ended up spending a fortune, which I always do, and one of the lethal errors of going to vineyards and making a purchase decision after a few glasses of wine. My favourite was probably a sweet wine made from the Assyrtiko grape or Vinsanto which had a lovely plummy-burnt caramel-figgy taste. Served perfectly cold and utterly delicious. It may be worth noting that the tasting rooms close fairly promptly at 7pm, so don't expect to hang around for the sunset in the summer.


Mudgee Vineyards, New South Wales, Australia
November 2005

I was a vineyard virgin when I went to Mudgee and it was perfect for a first timer. I went upon the recommendation of an expat friend of mine who claimed this was the less commercial sister of Hunter Valley and the one Sydney siders tend to choose for a more authentic experience. I guess it's about a three hour drive outside Sydney on a mainly fairly dull drive, although you can stop off at the Blue Mountains en route if you choose (which we did).

I went with my brother (Bordeauxboy) who was a wine tasting novice at the time but has since taken on wine tasting as a professional hobby. We were camping at the Mudgee Valley Tourist Park and hired bikes nearby, as you can reach a range of wineries by pedal.

I loved Mudgee for a number of reasons. Firstly because it was utterly unpretentious and very, very cheap. None of the wineries charged for tastings which I was later to discover is an absolute rarity (I'd love to know if this is still the case today as this was several years ago). Secondly, every person working the cellar door was friendly and knowledgeable and seemed genuinely grateful of the company. Thirdly, the measures were generous and free flowing.

This was also the first time I tried Ice Wine which is a fortified wine made from grapes that have been frozen while still on the vine. Before this day I had formed the opinion that I hated dessert wine, but drinking this delicious, cold, clean wine completely changed my mind for life.

The whole experience was perfect for me as I knew little (nothing) about wine. Wine tasting can be a slightly pretentious and snobbish affair, and sometimes the clueless can be sneered at. However, there was none of this here. Just friendly helpfulness, and wine that kept flowing.

The result was a very drunk Pinotnoirgirl and Bordeauxboy doing some rather Kamikaze cycling around Mudgee. We also got dive bombed by territorial magpies, adding to the immense gratitude for our cycle helmets.

Hunter Valley, New South Wales, Australia
November 2009

So I thought it only fair to include Mudgee's big sister, Hunter Valley.

An exceptionally full of life Kiwi friend of mine drove that day. So I was lucky that I had her company and also that I didn't have to drive. From Sydney, you can easily go there and back in a day. When we went, an art exhibition was taking place called Sculpture in the Vines. Which meant we could sup wine, beer and (not) champagne while looking at a range of slightly bizarre, but very fun, art. They also hold a Jazz in the Vines event which my brother has been to which he thought was excellent.

There are lots and lots of cellar doors to choose from, and although more commercial than Mudgee, the place still oozes with the friendly charm that Australia does so well.

A couple of highlights were having a "Sticky Experience" at the De Bortoli cellar door which merited a mention just for the name. I enjoyed six different types of fortified wine including a (not) Tawny Port and the famous Noble One Dessert Wine. We also supped some (not) champagne overlooking the vineyards at the Peterson House tasting rooms. It was called a Champagne House then, but I notice it has since been changed to sparkling wines, I assume due to champagne appellation laws. We had a delicious meal and enjoyed some delicious wines in a beautiful setting.

To make our tasting experience complete (and to cement the future hangover) we went to the Hunter Beer micro brewery which is located at the Potters Brewery and resort. As a lover of alcoholic ginger beer, it was great to find some spicy litre bottles here that we could try and buy.

Needless to say, my head was lolling all the way back to Sydney, with my very sober friend looking on disapprovingly. Until we got home, and proceeded to finish off most of the wine and beer we had bought during the day.

I'm going back to Syndey soon, and I definitely plan to make a trip here again.