Hunter Valley wine region

The wine-making history of Hunter Valley begins with the European settlement of the Sydney and the New South Wales region of Australia in the late 18th century as a penal colony of the British Empire. The Hunter River itself was discovered, by accident, in 1797 by British Lieutenant John Shortland as he searched for escaped convicts. The region soon became a valuable source for timber and coal that fuelled the steamship trade coming out of Sydney. Grapevines were planted in Sydney soon after its discovery in 1788 and as settlements fanned northward up towards the Hunter, government authorities actively encouraged plantings as a means of promoting both public sobriety and safety. The logic behind the promotion of viticulture and winemaking was that men tend to become more drunk and disorderly when under the influence of highly alcoholic spirits. If enough wine was provided, it was believed, it could be a moderate influence that could tame the "savagery". Thomas Melville White Winder is credited with planting the first grapes in the region on arriving 1820 to the Hunter. He built Windermere, the historic house in 1821 which was on the hunter and had a fleet of ships which sent Cedar timber and other supplies south to Sydney and overseas. He planted a vineyard on the estate prior to 1840. James Busby and further plantings The first major planting in the Hunter Valley came in 1825 when James Busby, widely considered the father of Australian wine, purchased vineyard land between the settlements of Branxton and Singleton and named it Kirkton after his Scottish birthplace near Edinburgh. In 1831, Busby travelled extensively throughout Europe and South Africa, collected cuttings from over 500 vineyards, including six cuttings of Syrah from the Hermitage hill in the Rhône. When he returned, many of these cuttings were planted in the Hunter Valley at the Kirkton estate now owned by his brother-in-law William Kelman. In the 1830s, several vineyards were planted in the Hunter Valley, including the first vineyards by George Wyndham of Wyndham Estate, many with cuttings directly provided by Busby at Kirkton. In 1847, the Hunter Valley Viticulture Society was founded with the mission of expanding viticultural knowledge and improving techniques in the region. By the end of the decade, plantings had expanded from to over . Between 1866 and 1876 the region saw further expansion as the acreage of planted vines topped 1800. Most of the early vineyards of the Hunter were located in the northeast section of the valley in the fertile alluvial plains along the Hunter River. The river provided easy transport of the wine down to the seaside port of Newcastle and onto Sydney. By the 1860s, plantings began to move further south and west towards the foothills of the Brokenback range near Pokolbin and Rothbury where many of the most highly esteemed vineyards of the Hunter are now found. A Hunter Valley sparkling wine made from James King of Irrawang Vineyard bested the French Champagnes to win the honour of being served at the table of Emperor Napoleon III during the exhibition's closing ceremonies. Another pivotal figure during this period was Maurice O'Shea of Mount Pleasant vines in the Pokolbin area. While many producers in Australia were focusing on fortified wine, O'Shea continued to espouse the virtue of Australian dry table wines. O'Shea's foresight would pay off as consumer taste shifted towards drier styles of wine in the 1950s and 1960s. A flurry of plantings began in the Hunter, including 1963 establishment of Lake's Folly by a Sydney surgeon, Dr. Max Lake. Along with Rudy Komon, Johnny Walker and wine columnist Len Evans, who all believed in the future of the Australian wine industry, Lake begin to extensively plant red wine varietals, including the reintroduction of Cabernet Sauvignon to the Hunter Valley. 1960s to present-day In the 1960s, a Sydney wine merchant named Leo Buring began marketing the first commercially successful Hunter Valley Semillon under the label "Rhine Gold". In 1971, Murray Tyrrell released Australia's first commercial bottling of Chardonnay which signalled the beginning of the Australian Chardonnay craze. According to wine experts Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson, Tyrrell's Vat 47 Hunter Valley Chardonnay was the wine that "launched a million bottles." From 1956 to 1976, plantings in the Hunter Valley grew from to over . Despite a slight reduction during the global recession of the 1980s, the Australian wine boom of the 1990s pushed plantings even further to over . While the Hunter Valley has been supplanted by the massive Riverina wine region as the largest producer of New South Wales wine, it still accounts for around 3% of Australia's total wine production and is one of the country's most recognisable regions. Today there are over 150 wineries in the Hunter, producing a wide range of wine. ==Climate==

While the Hunter Valley is usually grouped in with the rest of Australia as having a Mediterranean climate, the climate is actually humid subtropical, with distinctive maritime influences from the Pacific Ocean. With its northerly latitude and close oceanic influences, the Hunter Valley is one of Australia's hottest and wettest wine regions. Through the growing year, January tends to be the warmest month while July is usually the coolest. Temperatures during the peak growing month of January average between , with the temperature becoming progressively hotter the further inland you move away from the cooling influence of the sea. During the growing season the Hunter Valley receives an average of 7.3–7.5 hours of sunshine a day, but with the cloud cover coming in off the ocean the sunlight is slightly diffuse which gives the vines some protection from heat stress. During the growing season the Lower Hunter will average around 2070 degree days (Celsius) with the Upper Hunter having 2170 degree days putting it under the Winkler heat summation scale as a Region IV. Mid-latitude westerly winds bring high pressure weather front that alternate with cold fronts on the winter. This leads to generally drier conditions in the winter months of July and August. In the summer, southeasterly winds bring weather fronts harbouring extensive amounts of moisture. Between October and April more than two thirds of the region's annual rainfall will fall with January and February being the wettest months. As much as of rain can fall during harvest months, creating the Hunter's biggest viticultural hazard, though the inverse problem of winter drought can also be a problem. The rain, coupled with the heat, encourages high relative humidity in the region and subsequent threat of mould. During the growing season months of October–April, the 3pm average for relative humidity in the Lower Hunter is 49%, while it is 43% in the Upper Hunter. ==Wine regions and subregions==

The Hunter Valley Wine Zone Australian Geographical Indication was registered on 1 May 1996 and is approximately the entire Hunter River catchment. It contains only one named wine region, Hunter. The Hunter Wine Region Australian Geographical Indication was declared on 18 March 1997. It is not as large as the Hunter Valley zone, but includes most of the significant vineyards. It does not extend east of the Pacific Highway. The Hunter region has three subregions. The three recognised subregions of the Hunter Wine Region are Broke Fordwich (registered 2 September 1997), Pokolbin (registered 29 July 2010) and Upper Hunter Valley (registered 29 July 2010). Broke Fordwich Broke Fordwich surrounds the towns of Broke, Fordwich and Bulga. Some of the oldest vines in the Hunter Valley were planted in 1924 around the village of Fordwich. The Broke Fordwich subregion is between the Upper Hunter Valley to the northwest and the lower Hunter Valley (including Pokolbin) to the east. Broke Fordwich is sheltered on the south side of the valley on the Fordwich Sill volcanic red clay and nearby free-draining alluvial soils and sandy loam. It has lower rainfall and higher diurnal temperature variation than Pokolbin. The Broke Fordwich area is located along the Hunter River tributary of the Wollombi Brook near the suburb of . The area was founded in 1830 by Major Thomas Mitchell who named the region after his fellow Napoleonic War veteran Sir Charles Broke-Vere. The area's location along the convict trail helped it to flourish as convicts were shuttled through to work in the coal mines of Cessnock. In September 1997, it was granted official sub-region status of the Hunter Valley. For most of the Hunter Valley's history, Broke Fordwich was noted for the quality of its fruit. Max Lake, of Lake's Folly, noted in 1970 that "Much of the reputation of Pokolbin rests with fruit from Fordwich". The area includes numerous wineries, ranging from large multi-national to small family run operations, which are a popular tourist destination. In addition to long-established names like Drayton, Lindeman's, Tulloch, Lake's Folly and Tyrrell, newer plantings from the likes of Brokenwood Wines, Don Francois, Allandale, Petersons and Bimbadgen can be found. Much of the rolling countryside around Pokolbin is under vine with the traditional varieties Shiraz and Sémillon still dominating but extensive plantings of Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and the occasional plot of Pinot noir can be seen. Despite hot summers and freezing winters with frequent frost presenting a constant challenge to vineyard managers and winemakers, the area is a successful wine growing region thanks to mountains that encircle three sides of the valley, the cloud cover, and afternoon easterly sea breezes which, during summer, help to mitigate the blazing sunshine and keep humidity moderated on the valley floor. Soil types vary from rich red volcanic soil from the long-extinct volcano of Mount View and sandy loam which benefits most white varieties. The red volcanic soil is found mostly on the southern ridges. However, it can be found in patches on the valley floor. Over the decades, the style of Hunter whites and reds has changed vastly, from robust, muscular reds exhibiting the famous Hunter Valley "sweaty saddle" and extraordinarily long-lived Semillon whites to reds showing more fruit, complexity and delicacy and whites exhibiting fruit-driven characters. Upper Hunter Valley The main town in the Upper Hunter Valley subregion is Muswellbrook. The Upper Hunter Valley is the most northern and western subregion of the Hunter region, on higher slopes of the Hunter Valley. The Upper Hunter region was first planted in 1860 by a German settler named Carl Brecht. From his vineyard planted at the junction of Wybong Creek and the Goulburn River, Brecht's wines would win numerous gold medals at international wine competitions in the 1870s. Brecht's success would spur some interest in the area but the same turn of the 20th century events that saw decline throughout the Hunter Valley would compound to virtually extinguish all viticulture in the Upper Hunter. It wasn't until the 1960s when Penfolds purchased land near Brecht's old Wybong estate that significant viticulture interest in the Upper Hunter re-emerged. Through many years of trial and error, the viticulturalists at Penfolds were able to determine that the area was most suitable for white wine grape varieties. The Upper Hunter has experienced a decline in vineyard area since the withdrawal of large wine producers Rosemount and Arrowfield from buying large quantities of Upper Hunter grapes early in the 21st century. ==Viticulture==

Like most New World wine regions, there is little to no government restrictions on the type of viticultural practices used in the Hunter Valley. Growers are free to plant whatever grape variety they wish, use any pruning or vine training system, and harvest as large or small of yields as they wish. To that extent, there is a wide range of viticultural practices seen in the Hunter Valley, though some commonality does occur. Of particular concern is bunch rot often caused by the fungus Botrytis cinerea. In the production of late harvest wines, such as Semillon, Botrytis can be desirable and is known as noble rot. But for other grape varieties, particularly red wine grapes, the fungus is unwelcome with its infection described as grey rot. In the late 1990s, research in Hunter Valley vineyards discovered that a wide range of pathogens caused various occurrences of bunch rot in the vineyards. These other pathogens included Colletotrichum acutatum (ripe rot), Greeneria uvicola (bitter rot) and other fungi from the genera of Aspergillus, Penicillium and Alternaria. Susceptibility of certain wine grape varieties were found to increase as the grapes reached higher Brix sugar levels. Further research in the 2000s, showed that some of the open canopy techniques used to prevent Botrytis grey rot may actually promote the development of some of these other types of rot. Ripe rot, in particular, seemed to thrive at the higher ultraviolet B (280–320 nm) light exposure that open canopies allow. To compound the potential problem for Hunter Valley wine growers is that, as of 2010, there wasn't any fungicides registered for use for this disease. In addition to the pests noted above, vineyards in the Hunter Valley are usually grafted on phylloxera resistant rootstock to help keep the louse at bay. During the growing season kangaroos are frequent threats to the young buds and shoots of grapevines, requiring tall barb wire fences to keep the hopping creature out. Ever present nuisances near harvest time are the frequent birds that descend upon the area. ==Grape varieties==

The most widely planted grape varieties in the Hunter Valley, in descending order, are Chardonnay, Semillon and Verdelho among the whites and Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot among the reds. Prior to the late 1960s, there was very little Chardonnay found in Australia. In the Hunter Valley Penfolds has a small experimental planting. According to Murray Tyrrell of Tyrrell Vineyards, one night he jumped the barb wire fence of Penfolds and pruned a couple cuttings from Penfolds' vine and planted them in his vineyard. While there were likely some plantings of Cabernet Sauvignon in the 19th century, Hunter Valley Cabernet seemed to vanish at the turn of the 20th century and didn't regain a footing in the Hunter until Max Lake reintroduced the variety along with the other Bordeaux varietals of Petite Verdot and Malbec in 1963. Today, Hunter Valley Cabernet exhibits more the regional traits of a Hunter Shiraz than it does with the varietal expression of Cabernet exhibited in Bordeaux and California. It tends to be very earthy and is usually cross blended with wine from regions outside the Hunter. Described by Oz Clarke as one of the "wine world's enigmas", the grapes unique profile is attributed to the harsh climate and humidity of the Hunter which coax this low acid grape to higher acid levels than it achieves in the cooler climate of Bordeaux. Typical harvest figures for Hunter Valley Semillon are between 6.8 and 7.4 g/L acidity and 2.8-3 pH while in Bordeaux the grape is usually harvested at around 4.8–5.5 g/L and 3.1–3.3 pH. that shapes the Hunter Valley's distinctive Semillon. While the textbook profile of Semillon is that of a thin skin, neutral grape that is prone to low acids and fatness in the Hunter it matures over decades into a honeyed wine with toasty biscuit notes and a mineral backbone. Despite almost always being unoaked, a mature Semillon gives the textural impression of spending years in the barrel. ==Soils==

Overall, the Hunter Valley has more soils (mostly hard, acidic patches of poorly draining heavy clay) that are unsuitable for viticulture than they have areas that are ideal for growing grapes. The soils of the Lower Hunter vary widely from sandy alluvial flats (often planted to Semillon), to deep friable loam (often planted with Shiraz) and friable red duplex soils. In the Upper Hunter, the rivers and creeks of the region contribute to the areas black, silty loam soils that are often overlaid on top of alkaline clay loam. Among the hills of the Brokenback range are strips of volcanic basalt that are prized by growers for their tendencies to restrict vigor and concentrate mineral flavours in the grapes. ==Wine industry==

The Hunter Valley wine industry is dominated by its proximity to Sydney. It has also become a significant element in the local economy in the tourism industry. The significance of tourism can be exemplified by the employment of more people in that industry than wine production. In 2008, a total of of wine grapes were planted in the Hunter Valley with dedicated to red grapes and planted to white grapes. At harvest time, 9,263 tonnes of red wine varieties were crushed for an average of 5.5 tonnes/ha. Among white wine varieties, 19,310 tonnes were crushed with an average of 6.9 tonnes/ha. Around 28% of the red grapes and 63% of the white grapes crushed were from estate grown-fruit. Roughly a third of the red grapes and a fifth of the white grapes crushed were imported from outside the Hunter Valley. Many of these imported grapes come from other New South Wales Wine regions such as the Cowra, Mudgee, Orange and Riverina and are labelled under the large Southeast Australia designation. The wine laws for the Hunter Valley follow the same regulations as the rest of Australia, as governed by Wine Australia. For a grape variety to appear on the wine label as a varietal wine it must account for at least 85% of the wine. If the wine is a multi-grape blend it must list the grapes on the wine in order of importance with the exact percentages of each grape listed somewhere on the wine. If the wine is labelled with a region then at least 85% of the grapes must be sourced from that area. ==References==