Mark, myself, Ali, Brett, Annabelle and Matt visited Mudgee for a weekend catch up and some wine tasting. We headed up on the Friday (10th August) and the boys played golf on the Saturday morning before we all ventured out in style for 4 hours of wine tasting. This post records the ‘do’s and some dont’s‘ for anyone considering a trip to Mudgee.
Do: consider staying at Kirsten Apartments. We stayed in ‘Fleetwood’, at 5/47A Lewis Street Mudgee, which is advertised as a modern 3 bedroom apartment but is more like a house.This was a great venue for three couples as each of the three bedrooms had a queen sized bed and it was located within an easy 5 min walk to the main part of town and closer than our previous lodging. The apartment is of contemporary design, with lots of space and a great kitchen, dining lounge area that opens on to a lovely courtyard with BBQ. A great place for a family or group of friends to stay whilst visiting Mudgee. We will DEFINITELY stay here again for our next visit to Mudgee!
Do: consider having a meal at the Mudgee Brewing Company. It is an easy walk from the apartment, well priced with good food offerings and they have live music on a Friday night. We dined there on the Friday night and had a great time!
Saturday 11th August
It was a sunny but cold morning but Matt braved the outdoors to prepare a BBQ bacon and egg feast before the boys headed off to Golf. Ali went for a run and I went for a walk before us girls hit the town for, what was meant to be, some window shopping. Unfortunately a few things I saw in one window are now in my bag!
We all met back at Fleetwood at around 12.30 pm for our 1 pm wine tasting tour. We booked a maxi taxi again through Mudgee Radio Cabs as we had used this service once before. Ken and Deb offer a wonderful and competitively price service that allows small groups to tailor vineyard visits to their own preference. Our tour went from 1 pm to 5 pm and Ken charged us the same rate as he had four years ago; $60 per hour. Given we were only a group of 6, Ken offered us a stretch limousine for the same price and so we had a rather fun time over the 4 hour tour.
Do: I would highly recommend using Mudgee Radio cabs as a way to visit the wineries.
Vineyards on our 1 – 5 pm tour:
Do: Robert Stein: A small tasting room but worth a visit. We bought 2 x sparkling Shiraz.
Do: Short Sheep: This is an intimate small scale winery and so you won’t have to compete with huge bus crowds here. Their business is still growing and the wines are good. We bought the 2017 Demi-sec Rose, the 2016 Nectar de la Vigne and the 2016 Vineyard Shiraz.
Do: Pieter van Gent: A charming vineyard with a very atmospheric wine tasting cellar. Best known for their white port! Delicious! We bought 4 x Durif botrytis, 2 x pipe clay pink port, 3 x Flower of Florence Rose, 2 x Sundance Red. 2 x Mistella.
Do: Bunnamagoo: a lovely venue, helpful staff, and generous wine sampling on offer. We bought the Semilion Botrytis and a Rose.
Don’t: bother with Lowe: we didn’t like any of the wine on offer here.
Do: Baker Williams Micro Distillery: only the boys tasted here as we were pressed for time. Mark bought an Orancello.
Don’t: bother having dinner at The Oriental Hotel. We’d had dinner here once before and enjoyed the experience but the larger renovated rendition of this hotel left us wanting following this latest visit for dinner. We had booked a table for Saturday night but, when we arrived, they had no record of our booking. We were told we could try the beer garden but, being relatively open, it was a bit chilly; despite the heaters and plastic siding. The service was very slow though and the food rather ordinary so the whole experience was much less than we would have hoped for on our second and final night out for our weekend away.