Hunter Valley, north of Sydney, is one of the oldest wine regions in the New World, planted since the 1820s. Its humid, subtropical-edged climate is unusual for fine wine, but has produced a genuinely distinctive style: Semillon picked early and low in alcohol, tightly wound and austere in youth, that transforms over ten or twenty years into something toasty and complex. Hunter Shiraz, similarly, tends toward an earthy, medium-bodied style rather than the power of South Australia's warmer regions.

Key grapes: Semillon, Shiraz, Chardonnay