Wine Country

Although most of us slept and read books on the way here our 2 1/2 hour drive from Sydney to Hunter Valley proved to be very beautiful.  There are over 150 vineyards in Hunter Valley and some families are 5+ generations.  Today we visited 3 wineries, one brewery, and one smelly cheese shop.  It was interesting to see the differences between the first two wineries.  One was a very sustainable and organic while the other used toxic chemicals in their weed/pest control.  The organic winery was able to reuse everything from their water to their soil.  They even used worms to create what they called "worm tea" which was fed back into their fertilizer.  Overall, the day was very informative about wine making.  I learned that a screw top is better than a cork, a common misconception.  Almost all wines are now made with the screw tops, so don't let that fool you into thinking its lower quality.  The cork makes you have to put more perservatives in the wine, and makes you put less into the bottle.  The organic winery even had their packaging building built with straw walls!