The Auswine Forum

I'm thinking about a trip to Mudgee for the July 8-9 weekend. Any recommendations on wineries and places to eat?

I was thinking about possibly Vinifera, Blue Wren and a run to Rylstone for Louee, but know so little about the area and its wines that I may well be missing good things.

I spent three days visiting wineries in Mudgee last year.

Blue Wren is a great place to eat, with some decent wines as well.

Frog Rock have a huge range and some quality premium reds, I also liked their Semillon.

Farmer's Daughter Wines have the best range of reds in my opinion, quality Cabernet and also Merlot. If they have any of their "farmers port" left, give that a shot.

DiLusso Estate do Italian varietals, their cellar door offers food pairings such as roast lamb, olives and cheeses.

Thistle Hill are an organic winery hidden away in the back roads of Mudgee. Small family owned and run affair, great personal service.

Simon Gilbert do some value for money quaffers, check out the Rose.

Have some more information on the blog in the Mudgee Category.

Abercorn is good but the reserve wines are a bit spendy.

Huntington is legenday. I hope the prices haven't gone up much since it was purchased by Abercorn.

Kieran

Burrundulla are doing some great things at the moment, for something a little different try their Merlot Rose`

Shawwood Estate are producing some good fruit driven products, hard to go past their Cab or Shiraz

If you need a place to eat, try High Valley Estate, good portions sensational service, and first class grub!!!

Definitely try Louee. Some terrific value wines amongst their range.


Cheers

I visited Mudge in May this year. I would second most of the wine recommedations above, especially Di Lusso

Vinifera have a beautiful Tempranillo. They also have a Gran Tinto: a very impressive temp/cabernet blend. The 2005 Gran Tinto has some Graciano in it and is even better.

Elton's restaurant in the main drag has good tucker, and its BYO I think.

And take your themal undies, it will be bloody cold.

Righto, Mudgee trip done. Many thanks for the recommendations.

First off, what struck me most about the Mudgee and Rylstone wineries was their constant commentary about how far they were away from markets, including tourism trade. Seemed a strange message to be giving out.

As this was not a full-on winery weekend, there were only 5 cellar doors visited:

- Vinifera: I was keen to go here as they have been working on Spanish varietals for a while (tempranillo, graciano). What I saw didn't convince me. The tempranillo struck me as over-cropped, leading to an almost washed-out mid palate. The Gran Tinto blend had some reasonable fruit in it, but again, not that impressive. I was assured that the most recent two vintages (yet to be released) have much riper and weightier fruit.

- di Lusso: Why don't places specialising in Italian varietals (here sangiovese, nebbiolo, barbera, and some whites) not provide any kind of snack to accompany a tasting I do not understand. I turned up here after a double-decker party bus of birthday tasters arrived, which was a mistake, but the wines surprised me. The sangiovese was good, with prominent sour cherry characters, but over-priced at $25 a bottle (Pizzini do much better at this price point). The nebbiolo was much better than I exected from an early effort, but the real surprise was a good barbera. Even a dry cracker would have helped the wines, but there is promise here. I bought the nebbiolo, which is off for a long sleep.

- Mansfield: I treated them as a drive-through en route to Huntington before they closed, which was both rude and a mistake in terms of wine quality, value and genuine interest. The line up of whites, reds and fortifieds is long (and reminds me a lot of Pfeiffer or Cofields in Rutherglen, without the bubbles) and there is some excellent value here. I bought the garnacha(grenache), the straight touriga (table wine and very well done), moscatel and zinfandel. I went there for the touriga and walked away with a mixed case and a good feeling from meeting people who care about Spanish varietals (and zinfandel etc) and are doing a decent job of it. They have some parrellada vines in as well, which will be interesting. Mudgee cava here we come?

- Huntington: My first time here, and arrived two minutes before closing, but had a good run through of the reds. The reserve cabernet and shiraz were the clear standouts and I bought both, though the cabernet (2002) needs a lot of time, the shiraz (2001) is approachable already. An excellent cellar door experience and a producer I'll be going back to.

- Louee (Rylstone): A bigger list of wines than I realised they had (including late-picked whites), and they have released the 2004 nebbiolo from Nullo Mountain (their first nebbiolo release). If I hadn't have already wanted to buy their riesling and pinot noir, I would have walked out of a cellar door that has no price list for wines, anywhere, at all. Very strange. I enjoyed their verdelho but the riesling stood out among the whites. The 2004 pinot noir (under screwcap) was worth buying, but the other reds came across as less settled prospects. The nebbiolo in particular could do with quite a bit longer in bottle, with vacuum strength tanins at the moment. The strangest wine in the reds was the 2003 merlot, which I did not buy as it tasted of both olives and bushfire-smoke - quite strange wine.

I should also mention that the Rylstone Food Store has closed, but that Mudgee has some reasonable eating. The Butcher's Shop Cafe was solid, unpretentious cafe food. A local venison farm (Melrose) does excellent venison sausage and an even better venison prosciutto, both of which went well with good red (even if I brought that from the Barossa).

Mudgee hazelnuts in chocolate, served with a half-bottle of the Alvear 1927 solera Pedro Ximenez also went down very well.

Paul,

Did you try the Rumkers Peak Shiraz from Louee? Any thoughts?

Cheers

pstarr wrote:- di Lusso: Why don't places specialising in Italian varietals (here sangiovese, nebbiolo, barbera, and some whites) not provide any kind of snack to accompany a tasting I do not understand.

Thats strange, on my visit there they had a load of different foods to try paired with the wines, including local cheeses, olives, roast lamb...

Murray, I expect the 40th birthday party double-decker bus tasters had sorted out the food at di Lusso's (or they stashed it when the bus pulled up). I was keen on the idea of lamb with tasting!

As for the Rumker's Peak shiraz from Louee: plum/dark berries, understated palate with good oak integration, some nice spice but not minty/eucalypt. Good value and I bought some. Tasting it after the weird merlot was a mistake though.