The “wine bee” was past of online retailer Vinomofo’s Homeless Grapes Project – an initiative that was started in 2015 and has since gone on to raise more than $150,000 for charities around Australia.

Vinomofo CEO Justin Dry said the day was a resounding success – despite some early inclement weather.

“It rained a little bit at the start which was fun but it tuned out to be a beautiful day and I think we had about 150 people from the community turn out which is just fantastic,” he said.

With such wineries as Hungerford Hill, Brokenwood, David Hook, De Iulius and Margan all jumping on board, donating a selection of grapes to the cause, Mr Dry added that he was excited at the prospect of what will be produced.

“We are able to confirm that the wine is going to be a straight Semillon and I am just so excited to hear that because Hunter Semillon is one of my favourite wines of all time – especially when it has got a bit of age behind it.”

The beauty of the project is that 100 per cent of the proceeds from the sale of the wine will go directly to Newcastle-based charity OzHarvest.

“Every project we do, we chose a locally based charity, so the community that are giving up their time, energy and resources are investing in their local community,” Mr Dry said. “This time for the Hunter Semillon we’ve chosen OzHarvest Newcastle – it’s one of those charities that has done such an amazing job nationally but they are also doing incredible work locally, too.”

The project stated life in 2015 after McLaren Vale winemaker Jock Harvey shared a post on Facebook calling for people to come and pick excess grapes from his Chalk Hill Winery and making a donation to charity.

Mr Dry said that Vinomofo became aware of the push and decided to take the idea national, mounting the Homeless Grapes Project in McLaren Vale, Coonawarra, the Yarra Valley and now the Hunter.

He added that such was the success of the Hunter pick, that there are already plans in to works to stage the project in the region next year.

“We will definitely be repeating it,’ he said.