Bracken Ridge Estate
Bracken Ridge Estate provides its guests over twenty-five gorgeous acres, with sweeping views of its vineyards, dams, natural bush vistas through to the soaring Brokenback Ranges. The working vineyards have previously supplied to Brokenwood, and now to the award-winning Scarborough Wine Co.
Next to Pokolbin’s Hermitage Road yet being extremely private, surrounded only by cattle ranches and vineyards, the estate is one of Hunter Valley Wine Countries most naturally breathtaking locations offering uninterrupted views across the Shiraz and Semillon vineyards, bordered by wide grazing landscapes then framed by the Brokenback Ranges. The sunrises shared with hot air balloons drifting gently by are matched only by the truly magnificent sunsets across your very own vista.
The estate offers five individual, two level private villas set amongst the Shiraz and Semillon vineyards. Each are well distanced from each other, the separation ensuring guests privacy. Feel free to enjoy your villa’s own outdoor table in the grass, or leisurely roam about the estate where you can picnic by one of the three dams, or stroll through the rows of vines where you may see the estate workers tending to the stock or harvest. You will be surrounded by native birdlife, kangaroos, wallabies, water birds on the dams, horses and the bordering ranch’s cattle.
Bracken Ridge Estate sits at the Rothbury end of Pokolbin, is easily accessible by the Hunter Expressway or Wine Country Drive, conveniently serviced by all local transport options and is close to all wineries, cellar doors, restaurants and concert venues.
The Vineyard
The secret to our exceptional Shiraz and Semillon is the vineyards soil, it is very special to the wine growing region. Bracken Ridge Estate is located between 200-400m above sea-level and our soil is milk chocolate clay, red loam over limestone with magnesium that sits over the top. This produces wines with significant character and expression, with a focus on structure and aromatics. From the winemaker, ‘the fruit is targeted to the obsessive’. Historically the estate bottled the Shiraz and both sparkling and still Semillon wines under its own brand, before then being produced by Brokenwood, and is now currently produced by the award winning Scarborough Wine Co. whom continually achieve national and international accolades in their winemaking endeavours.
The Hunter Valley
Our estate at Pokolbin at the Hunter Valley is located 2hrs north of Sydney and 1hr west of Newcastle. It shelters below the soaring Brokenback Ranges at Pokolbin, and is surrounded by thousands of acres of cattle ranch and wineries. Perfect for wine production, the warm and humid climate is buffered by afternoon regional sea breezes. Our areas soils vary widely from friable milk chocolate clay and red volcanic soils which produce some of Australia’s most long-lived shiraz wines through to sandy riverbeds which produce similarly long-lived Semillon wines that consumers enjoy worldwide.