Husband-and-wife duo Matt and Kylie White are the new owners of Wine House Hunter Valley at Pokolbin.
Founded in 1987 by David and Susie Lochhead as the Small Winemaker Centre and later rebranded, Wine House Hunter Valley is the Hunter Region's original independent wine retailer and a popular one-stop-shop for visitors wanting to taste, drink and buy Hunter Valley wines in one sitting.
Matt has three decades of wine-buying experience in Australia and the UK, and Kylie runs a specialist wine marketing consultancy in the Hunter Valley.
Together, they hope to close a gap they've identified in the Hunter Valley wine-tasting experience. It's a region that boasts brands that have won almost every accolade going, but there's nowhere in the Hunter for the public to actually enjoy them.
The Hunter Valley is home to more than 150 independent winemakers, many without a cellar door of their own. Chief among them is Silkman Wines, the label from the Hunter Valley's only Halliday Winemaker of the Year and four-time Hunter Valley Winemaker of the Year, Liz Silkman.
Despite the acclaim, Silkman Wines has never had a cellar door of its own.
Wine House Hunter Valley solves that in one visit, Kylie says, by pouring an independent, hand-selected range from across the Valley and beyond, side by side, curated entirely on merit rather than supplier volume deals.
Kylie has worked with Silkman Wines for years to grow their marketing presence. She says Wine House Hunter Valley now gives it, and other acclaimed independent labels like it, a genuine home.
"I've spent years telling people how good these small-producer Hunter wines are and often having to explain there's nowhere to actually taste them," Kylie says.
"That's the piece that's been missing for brands like Silkman and many of the newer emerging wine brands who are making some of the region's most awesome wines.
"Wine House closes that loop."
Wine House Hunter Valley will champion well-known Hunter Valley wines but also offer a hand-selected, independent range of lesser-known brands for tasting, a members' wine club, and a relaxed, family-friendly atmosphere setting to enjoy them in.
Also, a Wine House Hunter Valley order can span multiple independent producers in a single mixed case and be shipped for one delivery cost, rather than separate orders and separate freight from every winery visited on the day.
And Wine House Hunter Valley will have one of the region's largest local wine-by-the-glass lists, where guests can choose from more than 35 wines by the glass and more than 100 by the bottle, alongside a plate of food or a Sprocket coffee.
"Every wine on our tasting list is here because I've personally tasted it and rate it," says Matt, whose career spans senior buying roles with Oddbins in the UK, the Wine Society, Woolworths Liquor and Wine Selectors.
"Bringing back a line-up of truly iconic Hunter wines like the Brokenwood Graveyard, Tyrrell's Vat 1, Maurice O'Shea, Thomas Wines Braemore and the like is something I think this region really needed - one tasting and all under one roof.
"And for brands without cellar doors like Riggs & Wiggs and Silkman, and the newly-formed Valley Rising winemakers - many of which are even lesser known (think Aeon, Noman, Sabi Wabi, Thea, Gun Powder, Glover, Pokolbin Vintners and the like) and are all doing extraordinary things with a tiny footprint - we're the place they can finally point people to.
"Naturally, we'll also taste and stock a great selection of other local independent icons to make it convenient for enthusiasts and novices to tick off the Hunter in a day or less."
