Denman in a Day

We are in the glorious Hunter Valley at a little place called Denman.  We know this town quite well as the daughter of our very good friends from Julia Creek was married in this pretty little place.  We chose to spend a couple of nights here as it is quite central to a lot of wineries and most importantly Pukara Olives.  Unfortunately our one and only full day here turned quite bleak with showers all day long with quite cool temperatures. But we were not perturbed.  We rugged up and headed to our first winery just 5 minutes from the Denman Village Caravan park.  It is called Two Rivers Winery.  As most of the cellar doors don't open until 11am we headed to the Main Street in Denman for coffee and cake before heading off.

Two Rivers Winery is only a small winery but their wine certainly packs a punch.  We were only interested in tasting the reds as they seem to be their best sellers.  The owner was quite chatty and she was able to give us a lot of information about the area and where we should dine and wine.  I also mentioned to her the I had not been able to stomach white wines of late and she said that in her humble opinion white should not be drunk until they are at least two years old.  I'm certainly going to take note of that.

We only purchased one tasting block of four wines because they were quite generous and we were driving.  They were all very good but we settled on the Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz. It will be interesting to try them away from the cellar door.....

Our next stop was at Pukara Olives.  Being the foodie that I am I bought up BIG in this place.  Their olive oil varieties were incredible as is the Caramelised Balsamic Vinegar the we can't wait to try with a nice loaf of sourdough and some of their Cashew Dukkah.  Yummo. We ended purchasing a bottle of their Wasabi Olive Oil, a couple of their pesto's, a BBQ Olive oil with chilli and garlic and because we had purchased quite a lot they threw in a bottle of Basil Olive Oil.  I have become a Pukara Club member as they offer a 15% discount on all future online purchases.

We were feeling a little peckish after this and earlier in the day I had made lunch reservations at Hollydene Winery so that was our next port of call.  They have a charming cellar door where we decided to taste their wines after lunch.  Unfortunately that did not happen...

Our lunch reservation in Vines Restaurant was made for 1.30pm and we were seated by 1.40pm.  Our order was taken almost immediately and our starter of Zucchini Flowers came out soon after.  And that is where it all fell apart.  We had run into some old Julia Creek acquaintances prior to lunch and after our entree they suggested that we pull our two tables together as we were sitting side by side.  We did that and had a great old chinwag.  We actually forgot about our mains until someone in the party said that they were taking a bit long.  By this time we had been waiting one and a half hours.  One of our friends asked about the meal and theirs was delivered shortly after.  We waited another half an hour for ours.......two hours since we were first seated! The staff were very apologetic and gave us a free round of drinks and because our meal was very, very late they gave us our mains for free.  This was very kind of them but still does not redeem the extremely long wait.  We had both ordered steaks that were absolutely delicious but the plate was missing the potato gratin....anyway......moving right along.....

It was too late to try their wine that is quite unfortunate because their Rose "Holly" was really good.  The day had not improved weather wise and we actually had showers and climbed into bed almost as soon as we arrived home.  It was the warmest place to be.

We are now at Belmont, Lake Macquarie where we will be for the next five days having the caravan service, satellite dish fitted and hopefully we will get in a little kayaking if the weather stays fine.

Judi x