Review: Chef-led Hunter Valley Food and Wine Tour from Sydney
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Gourmet food cooked and served from the back of a bus in the Hunter Valley — when I read about it, I was somewhat sceptical.
However, that’s exactly what you get on the Chef-led Hunter Valley Food and Wine Tour from Sydney with Gourmet Getaway Tours. The tour pairs fine Hunter Valley wines with a gourmet menu prepared en route by talented Sydney chef Jimmy Henry.
It’s early as our small group of five climbs on board Jimmy’s air-conditioned bus in the Sydney CBD. Our first stop is quite close by — the Sydney Fish Market — where the weekday reverse auction is in full swing for professional buyers. Unlike normal auctions, the price starts high and drops until a purchaser makes a bid.
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Jimmy shares his top tips for buying and cooking seafood. I can now choose a decent mud crab and cook it humanely, and tenderise octopus with kiwi fruit. The next time we have oysters, I’ll serve them with a splash of semillon!
While Jimmy buys the seafood for our upcoming progressive-style lunch, I get a coffee for the road.
As we head north, Jimmy shares information about points of interest along the way. The blocks of golden sandstone used in the construction of many of Sydney’s fine period buildings came from the Hawkesbury region that we are passing through. Later we see sections of the Great North Road, where the walls of solid sandstone were hand-cut by convicts.
The sleepy hollow of Brooklyn on the Hawkesbury River provides a pleasant spot to stop for breakfast. Jimmy gets to work on the meal while the rest of us take a short walk along the riverbank. I live on Dangar Island opposite Brooklyn, and I can’t resist pointing out my green boatshed and jetty to my companions. I even bump into a neighbour. Jimmy has met someone he knows too — a Brooklyn local who greets him warmly, saying: ‘Hey, you’re Jimmy. You’re famous in China!’
Our beautifully presented breakfast consists of fresh fruit and toasted flat bread wraps filled with spinach, rocket, mushrooms and cheese. Jimmy has pulled off this first mobile meal with ease.
We will visit three or four boutique Hunter Valley wineries over the course of this tour. The drive to the Hunter takes us past farms and roadside stalls offering local produce. You take what you want and pay using an honesty system.
The conversation soon turns to wine. While the Hunter Valley was the birthplace of winemaking in Australia, it now accounts for just 3% of the country’s wine production.
Our first stop is Wollombi Wines, which only sells its product direct to the public. The cellar door sits on a hill overlooking the vineyards, and there are interesting sculptures dotted about the property. Before the wine tasting begins, we learn a new skill from Jimmy — how to make the perfect sushi roll.
Jimmy’s sushi masterpieces are paired with a chilled Wollombi semillon and one of my fellow travellers eagerly exclaims: ‘This is the best sushi I have ever tasted!’ I doubt anyone disagrees — or that any of us has ever experienced sushi made with Balmain Bug!
It’s a short drive on to Mount View Estate. The wines here are paired with a delicious antipasto platter: cheese and marinated olives, grilled chorizo, stuffed field mushrooms and chargrilled asparagus with truffle oil. Jimmy prepares everything in his little purpose-built kitchen in the back of the bus. He makes it look so easy!
Our next stop is The Hunter Olive Centre at Pokolbin Estate Vineyard. Here we sample olives, olive oils, vinegars, chutneys, dukkah, and other delicacies. The Hunter Olive Centre offers a range of over 500 gourmet products (many of them locally made) — of which up to 50 are available to taste at any one time.
Our final stop is Saddler’s Creek Wines, which is the setting for our main course and dessert. The wines here are produced from estate-grown grapes, supplemented with fruit from the Barossa Valley in South Australia. We choose four whites and four reds to try with our food. I’ll remember the tender Barramundi fillets and tasty marinated Kangaroo kebabs for a long time to come. I’m not usually a fan of sticky dessert wines, but I so enjoy the one served with my wattle seed crème brulée that I decide to buy a bottle!
The wineries may change on this Chef-led Hunter Valley Food and Wine Tour from Sydney, but the fabulous Australian cuisine prepared by Jimmy throughout the day will no doubt pair perfectly with any Hunter drop.
The writer travelled as a guest of Gourmet Getaway Tours. You can book this tour here.
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Additional images: Bigstock
About the writer
Joanne Karcz is a Sydney-based travel writer, and has explored much of her home country, Europe, South America, and Southern Africa. She published a blog while walking the Camino de Santiago some years ago and has been writing about her adventures ever since. Joanne is also an aspiring photographer and takes her camera wherever she goes. She loves discovering new things to see and do in her own Sydney backyard, and blogs regularly about the city’s suburbs.
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