May was a wonderful month in the valley!

It’s a month we always look forward to because of the annual Margan White Label Lunch. We’ve been the past couple of years and it’s been fabulous each time. The Margan Wines cellar door is located in Broke. The building is beautiful and is surrounded by magnificent gardens that grow a lot of the produce used in the restaurant.

The White Label lunch starts with drinks on the terrace overlooking the view of the gardens and ranges, followed by a delicious meal served in the barrel room. The accompanying wines are outstanding. There’s alway fun entertainment too.

We haven’t had much rain at Providence lately, at least not enough to fill our dams. They look like they have beaches along their shores. But it is still beautiful to take a walk around them.

The temperatures are also starting to drop so a sweater or jacket is needed when adventuring out in the early hours of the morning or in the evening.

The positive thing about the cooler weather though is that it’s fire time! I love the slow combustion fire inside the house and also the chiminea outside in the courtyard.

Speaking of the courtyard, this little guy is one of the frogs who lives in our outdoor umbrella cover. It can be a bit of a shock when they drop to the table when you open the umbrella!

Last weekend we had guests join us. Clive and I started the weekend with dinner at Zaih’s. It’s located at Emma’s Cottage Vineyard, just down the road from us. So easy to get to, great food and superb service.

Our friends brought a huge wheel of butter (from Pepe Saya) with them so we enjoyed delicious butter on blueberry toast for breakfast. We then headed out for wine tasting and more food.

Because our friends hadn’t been to the Hunter Valley for a while we chose Keith Tulloch for a tasting and lunch. The wine tasting really is an experience. Guests are seated on the upper story of the beautiful Hampton’s inspired building. From this vantage point, you look over the vineyards while enjoying a personalised tasting of the wines. Highly recommended.

We headed downstairs and across the yard to Muse Kitchen for lunch. Our table was on the terrace and the weather was glorious. We followed lunch with dessert at Cocoa Nib. I couldn’t resist the chocolate raspberry cake – luckily I had Clive to help me eat it. Our friend Mike had a hot chocolate which was an experience in itself. The hot drink is served in a jug and is poured over a chocolate orb. The chocolate melts and tiny marshmallow cubes float out! And no visit is complete without buying some chocolate to take home. I chose the Macadamia Butter Crunch. Yum!

We wrapped up the weekend with a quiet night in on Sunday. We took a sunset stroll and stumbled on one of our agaves in flower! This flower spike is amazing. From what I understand, agaves take over 10 years to flower and then the plant unfortunately dies but you can replant the ‘pups’. The flowers can hit up to 1.5 metres so I’m keen to watch the changes as it goes through the flowering process.

June is a continuation of Food and Wine Festival in the Hunter so we have heaps planned.

Clive’s usually in charge of the wine so I’m trying to convince him to blog about a few of our wine experiences (of which there are plenty) and make some recommendations. Keep an eye out and see if I’m successful.

Nicki xx