Horner Wines opens new cellar door at Pokolbin

Nonetheless a new cellar door has opened in the Hunter - Horner Wines, on Palmers Lane - and they're doing things their own way. The early signs are good.

They're championing the aromatic white wine viognier, for starters. And lesser known varieties in Australia such as picpoul and marsanne are making an appearance, sometimes in unusual blends, along with the fortified wine madeira - all in small batches.

Different enough? On top of that there's the more common shiraz, chardonnay verdelho and grenache.

"Where possible we're getting organic fruit, but sometimes that's not possible," winemaker Ash Horner said.

If the name is familiar he's a Hunter boy, but has been around the winemaking traps and is probably best remembered for his years at Tamburlaine. His wife Lauren looks after the business side of things.

Ash was originally sourcing fruit from his father's organic Sandy Hollow property - but drought put an end to that plan. "The shiraz we have now is the last of my father's fruit," Ash said.

"So we'll get chardonnay from an organic vineyard in Orange for example, our organic verdelho is from the Central Ranges - areas that do each variety well and from growers we know. But we are also planning to plant our own organic vines here. It's a blank canvas, and w're just loving what we're doing."

The cellar door is open Friday to Sunday, and by appointment midweek.