Spicers Vineyards Estate

We know we’re in wine country when the cars in front of ours start to weave a little. It’s a sure sign the cares of the city have been left behind and a grape escape awaits. The mid-afternoon sun is melting buttery light across the vineyards as we cruise the Broke Road into Pokolbin, a hamlet of the Hunter Valley two hours north of Sydney.

As hawks wheel overhead seeking dusk degustations and mobs of kangaroos bound down to dams to drink, our own appetites are awakened to echo those of the wildlife. The Hunter is famously kind to the gatherer and we’re already laden with cheeses, breads, dips, olives and cured meats from the Valley’s many artisan boltholes when we pull into the sweeping driveway of Spicers Vineyards Estate for a weekend of gourmet grazing, vintage neck oiling, op shops and golf.

Set over two levels amid undulating hillsides and tawny eucalypt thickets, Spicers offers eight suites, six on the ground floor and two tucked above (we’re in a King Spa Suite). Each comes with a king-size bed, its own fireplace and Jacuzzi, and a complimentary minibar.

We’re not newlyweds but there are rituals to be observed in such luxurious surrounds. So we jump on the bed like kids full of cordial, run the tub taps full blast, leave the cheese to ripen in the steam, and pop our free bottle of bubbles to drink a toast to breaking city limits and leaving suburban mayhem far behind.

An idyllic hour later we’ve done the biz with the fizz and paid homage to the fromage. All that’s left is to don robes, coax the fire aflame, peruse the movie library and let nature take its course….

A squall of birdsong gently bugles us back to consciousness the next morning. Outside dawn is breaking over the dew soft as a lover’s sigh over the Spicers estate. We take our time emerging from a deep slumber then stroll down to breakfast.

Glassed off, sun soaked and overlooking the serene vista of the Spicers vineyards, Restaurant Botanica is as organic as it sounds. And as the first tremors of caffeine stir the blood and house-made spinach-fetta quiches come and go, equilibrium is restored and life is enhanced. Who says photosynthesis is strictly for plants?

Other guests lope in – a young couple facing up to their first day as man and wife, the slightly worse-for-wear BMW boys we tailed tipsily into town, an older duo as seasoned as the wines they rhapsodise about. Most are so rapt with their Parisian breakfast they don’t extend to hot breakfast. We extend. Poached eggs gush molten orange, the bacon curls crispy yet yielding and the tri-mushroom heap is fungi at its finest.

But it’s the sublime bedrock of bread that elevates this feast into fantasia. When we enquire of the waitress what noble bakery yielded so amazing a loaf, she smiles and beckons us to the Botanica cellar. There, nestled in a temperature-controlled adjunct to the dining room, is a tub of 150-year-old, San Francisco-sourced sourdough yeast bubbling its way to brilliance in time for dinner.

Turns out there’s even richer pickings in Botanica’s back paddock – a garden flush with rhubarb, radish, zucchini, eggplant, snowpeas, strawberries, parsley, pumpkin and lettuce. As we marvel at outsized fruit sun-ripening on the fence posts, three pigs shuffle up to snuffle hello. It’s the Spicers swine – Salami, Crackle and Chop Chop – beasts bluntly named but destined for the sharp end of Botanica chef Mark Stapleton’s ambitions (and smokehouse) in the months to come.

Sure enough, after a day giddily pin-balling between tastings at neighbouring vineyards Piggs Peake and Tintilla Estate, lunch at Keith Tulloch Wine’s Muse Kitchen and an afternoon horse ride through the Valley, we return to Botanica for a three-course dinner. And after kingfish ceviche, grilled spatchcock and seared scallops with matching wines comes a heady hunk of grass-fed beef with a fleck of speck atop. Oh, Crackle!

But this is Spicers. So we dig in and pig out, savouring the taste of dying happy and living well. Oink!