With so numerous great wineries in such a small area, it’s hardly unexpected the people of Mudgee are so pleased and friendly. For a visitor, the only problem is which wineries to visit first. For a must-see cheat sheet, here are our top 3 cellar doors you should visit.
Mudgee is about a 3 ½-hour drive north-west from Sydney over the blue Mountains. best in the rural regions of eastern Australia, this little town has drawn the focus of us city slickers – and for good reason.
With the ever-growing popularity of ‘the food scene’, Mudgee has some fantastic edible options on offer. By lucky chance (or skilled choice) the settlers of the region set up shop in a place where everything seems to just grow!
As you drive through the area, you’re just surrounded by amazing views of distant green hills and close-to vineyards. The sight of the row upon row of grape vines strung out across the acreage had us keen to try a drop of local vino before we’d even got to our digs – check out the Mudgee Homestead Guesthouse for the best place to stay and the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept in!
With over 50 wineries in the Mudgee area to choose from, it’s a hard task to either a) get through them all – a noble yet probably quite harmful quest or b) choose a few absolute winners to go to.
Well, here are our top three winery recommendations, sanctioned by quite a few of the locals we spoke to:
Skimstone
Probably the smallest cellar door we’ve ever been to, Skimstone’s ‘tasting shack’ is also certainly the most adorable. At the end of a dusty road, the shack over-looks the Cudgegong Valley, a river and the rolling lines of grape vines.
The shack itself is too small to hold much more than about 6 people. That’s ok though because the men who run the winery choose to go out onto the little patio to show their wines.
They have a great little range of wines. They even have a drinkable chardonnay that’s clean, crisp and very unlike a chardonnay. but their sangiovese is a top drop and worth buying.
Moothi Estate
Owned and manned by the Moore family, this has to be one of the friendliest cellar doors we’ve been to. It’s situated on a hill over-looking the vineyard and surrounding valleys, so the views from the veranda are amazing.
We only stopped by to try their wine, but you can also get a bite to eat at Moothi as well. They do cheese boards, ploughman’s, and some great sounding Moothi red wine pies during winter season as well.
As for their wine, once again not a huge selection, but the red wine they do make here is really good. Their Rocky Waterhole road Shiraz is great and their rosé’s pretty good as well.
Lowe Wines
This winery has really been developed with visitors in mind. You drive up to the cellar door through the fields of grape vines. The owner, David Lowe, has worked hard to make this certified organic winery much more than just a place to come and try some wine.
Obviously the focus is around wine, but food also features very strongly here. The entrance to the cellar door feels much more like a pub beer garden than a winery, with lots of people sitting outside, relaxing, trying red wine and eating.
This cellar door very much reminded me of some of the places we went in Sonoma in California. and I expect that’s suitable as one of Lowe’s main grape varieties is Zinfadel, popular on the west coast of the States.
Top Lunch Spot
I ought to also point out that if you drive a bit even more round from the Lowe cellar door, you’ll find the Zin House. This is a restaurant run by owner/chef Kim Currie, and it’s one of the most ideal settings for lunch we’ve found. They grow as numerous ingredients on site as they can, and the Zin house veggie patch out the front is an fantastic resource for their dishes.
The lunch itself is a 6-course degustation meal, and you can add a matching red wine flight with each dish as well. As you’d expect, the wines are all from Lowe. It’s a pretty distinct place to have a meal like this amidst the very vines where the red wine you’re drinking come from.
Pro tip
Gilbert Wines is on our list for the next time we’re in Mudgee. This looks like a beautiful family-run winery set in the beautiful Mudgee countryside. thanks to Ross Maher from Twenty five Doors for the tip.
Twenty five Doors is a brainwave of a red wine membership programme that guides you round red wine regions so you don’t miss the best bits, which are typically hidden from view. check it out here.
Mudgee is a great spot with so much happening in the food and drink scene all the time. here are some other things you can do in Mudgee – our post on 5 reasons why you need to visit Mudgee best now.
And if you haven’t been to numerous cellar doors before – or you’re an old hand but fancy checking to see if you’re doing it best – here are our top 15 suggestions for red wine tasting at the cellar door.
Do you have a preferred cellar door? What do you look for whenchoosing a winery to visit? tell us in the comments!
Images by Mrs Romance.