The 2014 Hunter Valley vintage has been hailed as one of the great vintages by leading winemakers in the region.
Bruce Tyrrell of Tyrrell's Wines has compared the 2014 vintage to the great 1965 vintage (at least for red wines) and Iain Riggs of Brokenwood said he rated the vintage 11 out of 10, Good Food reports.
Tyrrell said, "My father, Murray, was famous for regularly declaring a 'vintage of the century'. Well, this is possibly the best of both this, and last century."
Keith Tulloch of Keith Tulloch Wines' slightly more sober summary was "sensationally good".
"Some say the best of the decade, others say the best of the century," Tulloch says. "My early assessment is that 2014 fits very easily into the 'great vintage' category, which includes 2011, 2007, 2003, 2000 and 1998, but I'm not going to proclaim it quite yet as the best."
The reds are rich and higher in alcohol than usual (14 to 14.5 per cent, compared with the usual 13 to 13.5 – hence the comparison with 1965), while the semillons are also fuller and bigger – relative to Hunter style. That means around 12 per cent alcohol on average as opposed to the customary 11.
"They are wines that people will want to drink young," Tyrrell said. "They're softer, fuller, a degree of alcohol higher, and definitely not the battery-acid style semillons of the distant past."