The Heart of the Hunter by Bruce Holmes

Sitting down to dinner you realise your friend has brought an Australian wine, the McGuigan Bin 2000 Shiraz from the Hunter Valley, having seen it rated in Wine Spectator magazine. And as you begin to enjoy the first glass you wonder what the Hunter Valley is like, especially if you didn't make it to Sydney for the Olympics.

Since a colonial settler from Scotland planted the first French and Spanish vines in 1825, the Hunter has grown to be one of the premier wine-producing regions of Australia with more than 70 wineries.

Almost all of them have tasting rooms where visitors can sample wines before they buy. The bigger companies have really expanded their facilities to cater for the growing influx of tourists.

Interested visitors can learn about the winemaking process. Lindemans and Golden Grape Estate have winemaking museums displaying wine technology back to the 19th century. Tours explain the process from grape to bottle. At the McGuigan complex you can see the membrane pressing machine, fermentation vats and those famous oak barrels.

The Hunter Resort even offers a two hour Wine School course covering wine history, assessment and styles, as well as palate evaluation. This includes a technical tour of the winery, and a certificate.

All this talk of wine giving you an appetite? Well you won't go hungry here. The Hunter Valley has fine dining, resort restaurants, brasseries and cottages offering all sorts of cuisine.

These range from the award-winning Chez Pok, Robert's and Casuarina, to the Cafe Max at the Small Winemakers Center and the help yourself choices at the Hunter Valley Cheese Factory in McDonalds Road.

Conceived in 1995, the cheese factory has viewing windows to the making and maturation rooms. In the tasting room try a variety of cheeses. I particularly liked the Grape Vine Ashed Brie, made using a dust of local grapevine ash to slow the maturation process. Sounds doubtful? You'll be surprised.

Wondering whether there's anything more active to do after all this wine and food?

Try going with Grapemobile Bicycle and Walking Tours, a Hunter Valley Tourism Award winner, and work off the weight between winery stops. Catch the view from a hot air balloon. Or jump out of a plane and experience tandem skydiving.

Too hectic? Then play a round of golf at Cypress Lakes Resort and watch the ducks glide by.

For a more colorful way to get around ride in a Paxton-Brown carriage drawn by two purebred Haflinger horses. The likable Barry and Eve have imported some of these beautiful horses from Tirol in Austria and are breeding them here.

Feel the breeze as the horses break into a trot. They do know their way to the next winery, of course.

The grapes have inspired a number of festivals and special events throughout the year. They are picked from February to April during which time there’s a celebratory Harvest Festival.

October sees Jazz in the Vines at Tyrrell's Long Flat Paddock, an annual outdoor event drawing thousands of spectators, and Opera in the Vineyards performed in the amphitheater at Wyndham Estate.

Accommodation is plentiful with a wide choice of styles and prices. If you're thinking of visiting the Hunter Valley get a copy of the Wine Country Visitors Guide from the Information Center and make your own decision.

Things to do and places to stay, but all of it driven by the fruit of the vine.

And when you consider that the climate is hot in summer and the grape yield relatively low it might surprise some people that the area produces quality wines at all.

Ironically the comparatively low yields ensure greater intensity of flavor which means better wine, judging by the stream of wine show successes and the booming export market for Hunter wines.

Wines from Rosemount, Tyrrell's, McWilliams Mount Pleasant (sold as Barwang in the USA), Wyndham Estate (Orlando Wyndham), Rothbury Estate (Mildara Blass) and Brian McGuigan Wines are being uncorked around the world.

Australian tourism statistics show a substantial increase in the number of overseas visitors to the Hunter Region, with Americans particularly drawn to the wine country.

So perhaps next time you raise that glass of Australian wine you'll see yourself sitting in the vineyards of the Hunter Valley, watching the sun set over the Brokenback Mountains.