Wine Country

Back down in the Megalong Valley this afternoon for a Cellar Door wine tasting of the excellent single vineyard wines at family run Megalong Creek Estate. It's so great to see these businesses back in action albeit with some changes due to social distancing requirements.

Grapes were first commercially planted in the Megalong Valley in 2000 with many "experts" predicting that they'd never survive. Fortunately they were wrong and the two, now well established, vineyards are producing some great cold climate wines.
They've just come through the "season from hell", firstly with drought that made growing conditions marginal, secondly with smoke taint from the nearby fires wrecking the white grapes, and thirdly, just when they thought they could save the reds they were hit by torrential rain and floods. The entire crop had to be cut and dropped to the ground for fertilizer. Then covid19 hit!
Nevertheless they soldier on and will continue to produce excellent wines. Well worth a visit if you are in the area.

This image shot from my stool alongside our barrel table while we were tasting. It's a grape way to spend the afternoon ;-)

For those trying to get their bearings, the large white building on the skyline toward the right hand side of the image, is the Hydro Majestic hotel at Medlow Bath.

The extra is of the family patriarch and his granddaughter on their ATV.