Australia's oldest wine region is also one of its least likely — hot, humid and rain-prone, the sort of subtropical climate no textbook would choose for fine wine. Yet the Hunter, north of Sydney, makes two utterly original classics: a lean, low-alcohol Sémillon that ages for twenty years into toast and honey, and a medium-bodied, earthy, uniquely regional Shiraz.
Both defy expectations. The Sémillon is picked early and unoaked, almost neutral in youth, then transforms in bottle into one of the wine world's singular white wines. The Shiraz is soft and savoury rather than blockbuster. Together they make the Hunter a region that succeeds by breaking the rules.