[2] As well as Hunter Valley Sémillon, the region produces wine from a variety of grapes including Shiraz, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Verdelho.

The Lower Hunter Valley is not strictly defined, but in general includes the Pokolbin subregion, along with the districts around Wollombi, Mount View, Cessnock and Lovedale.

[1][4] The wine-making history of Hunter Valley begins with the European settlement of the Sydney and the New South Wales region of Australia in the late 18th century as a penal colony of the British Empire.

[6] It was under these auspices that the grapevine followed land prospector John Howe as he cut a path through the Australian wilderness from Sydney up to the overland area in what is now known as the (Lower) Hunter Valley proper in 1820.

Today, the modern Putty Road between the cities of Windsor and Singleton follows Howe's exact path and is a major thoroughfare for wine tourists coming into the Hunter Valley from Sydney.

[9] The first major planting in the Hunter Valley came in 1825 when James Busby, widely considered the father of Australian wine, purchased vineyard land between the settlements of Branxton and Singleton and named it Kirkton after his Scottish birthplace near Edinburgh.

By the 1860s, plantings began to move further south and west towards the foothills of the Brokenback range near Pokolbin and Rothbury where many of the most highly esteemed vineyards of the Hunter are now found.

"[10] A Hunter Valley sparkling wine made from James King of Irrawang Vineyard bested the French Champagnes to win the honour of being served at the table of Emperor Napoleon III during the exhibition's closing ceremonies.

But the turn of the 20th century brought a shifting dynamic to the Hunter Valley wine industry as the provinces on the Australian continent became federated into states and a new constitution was drafted that banned such interstate trade barriers.

This temporarily produced an up-tick in plantings but the global Great Depression as well as a series of devastating hail storms between 1929 and 1930 caused many growers to abandon their vineyards.

Some of the land was bought up by the growing wine estates of Tyrrell, Elliotts and Wyndham that would later become driving forces behind the Hunter Valley's next boom period.

[12] In the 1960s, a Sydney wine merchant named Leo Buring began marketing the first commercially successful Hunter Valley Semillon under the label "Rhine Gold".

During the growing season the Hunter Valley receives an average of 7.3–7.5 hours of sunshine a day, but with the cloud cover coming in off the ocean the sunlight is slightly diffuse which gives the vines some protection from heat stress.

The area was founded in 1830 by Major Thomas Mitchell who named the region after his fellow Napoleonic War veteran Sir Charles Broke-Vere.

[24] The area includes numerous wineries, ranging from large multi-national to small family run operations, which are a popular tourist destination.

Much of the rolling countryside around Pokolbin is under vine with the traditional varieties Shiraz and Sémillon still dominating but extensive plantings of Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and the occasional plot of Pinot noir can be seen.

[25] Despite hot summers and freezing winters with frequent frost presenting a constant challenge to vineyard managers and winemakers, the area is a successful wine growing region thanks to mountains that encircle three sides of the valley, the cloud cover, and afternoon easterly sea breezes which, during summer, help to mitigate the blazing sunshine and keep humidity moderated on the valley floor.

[13] As with many areas of Australia with labour shortages, viticulture in the Hunter is highly mechanised with machine harvesting the norm and experiments in mechanical pruning and leaf pulling also widely practised.

[6] The high humidity and propensity for harvest rains leads many growers to use open canopy management techniques and trellising as well as frequent leaf pulling in order to keep mould and rot at bay.

[1] Despite the generally wet climate, irrigation is often used in the slightly drier Upper Hunter where the winter and early growing seasons are prone to drought.

Site selection on well drained soils are considered of vital importance and much effort is put into ensuring the canopy is open so air flow can help dry the grapes off.

[30] The unique environmental pressures of the Hunter Valley also conspire to give growers problem with "dieback diseases" that damage the wood parts of the vine and eventually lead to death.

During the growing season kangaroos are frequent threats to the young buds and shoots of grapevines, requiring tall barb wire fences to keep the hopping creature out.

[13] The most widely planted grape varieties in the Hunter Valley, in descending order, are Chardonnay, Semillon and Verdelho among the whites and Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot among the reds.

While this was once thought to be a terroir characteristic of the areas volcanic soils, it is now known to be caused by ethyl-4-phenol that comes from the exposure of the wine to certain strains of yeast in the Brettanomyces family.

While an obscure grape mostly associated with the fortified wines of Madeira, Verdelho has developed a niche in the Hunter Valley where its thick skin and high acids tolerate the humidity and heat.

While the textbook profile of Semillon is that of a thin skin, neutral grape that is prone to low acids and fatness in the Hunter it matures over decades into a honeyed wine with toasty biscuit notes and a mineral backbone.

[32] Overall, the Hunter Valley has more soils (mostly hard, acidic patches of poorly draining heavy clay) that are unsuitable for viticulture than they have areas that are ideal for growing grapes.

[1] Among the hills of the Brokenback range are strips of volcanic basalt that are prized by growers for their tendencies to restrict vigor and concentrate mineral flavours in the grapes.

[5] Many of these imported grapes come from other New South Wales Wine regions such as the Cowra, Mudgee, Orange and Riverina and are labelled under the large Southeast Australia designation.