page_title: Hunter Valley wine
section_title: James Busby and further plantings
hierarchical_section_title: Hunter Valley wine / History / James Busby and further plantings
caption_attribution_description: English: Head and shoulders portrait of Busby, James, 1802-1871, British Resident at Waitangi, whose house was used for the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840
context_page_description: The Hunter Valley is one of Australia's best known wine regions. Located in the state of New South Wales, the region has played a pivotal role in the history of Australian wine as one of the first wine regions planted in the early 19th century. Hunter Valley Semillon is widely considered the iconic wine of the region but the Hunter produces wine from a variety of grapes including Shiraz, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Verdelho.
  Under Australia's wine appellation system, the Hunter Valley zone Australian Geographical Indication covers the entire catchment of the Hunter River and its tributaries. Within that, the Hunter region is almost as large, and includes most of the wine-producing areas, excluding the metropolitan area of Newcastle and nearby coastal areas, some national parks, and any land that was in the Mudgee Shire. There are three named subregions in the Hunter region. These are the Upper Hunter Valley, Broke Fordwich and Pokolbin subregions. The Lower Hunter Valley is not strictly defined, but in general includes the Pokolbin subregion, along with the districts around Wollombi, Mount View, Cessnock and Lovedale.
context_section_description: The first major planting in the Hunter Valley came in 1825 when James Busby, widely considered the father of Australian wine, purchased vineyard land between the settlements of Branxton and Singleton and named it Kirkton after his Scottish birthplace near Edinburgh. In 1831, Busby travelled extensively throughout Europe and South Africa, collected cuttings from over 500 vineyards, including six cuttings of Syrah from the Hermitage hill in the Rhône. When he returned, many of these cuttings were planted in the Hunter Valley at the Kirkton estate now owned by his brother-in-law William Kelman.
  In the 1830s, several vineyards were planted in the Hunter Valley, including the first vineyards by George Wyndham of Wyndham Estate, many with cuttings directly provided by Busby at Kirkton. In 1847, the Hunter Valley Viticulture Society was founded with the mission of expanding viticultural knowledge and improving techniques in the region. By the end of the decade, plantings had expanded from 80 ha (198 acres) to over 200 ha (494 acres). Between 1866 and 1876 the region saw further expansion as the acreage of planted vines topped 1800.
  Most of the early vineyards of the Hunter were located in the northeast section of the valley in the fertile alluvial plains along the Hunter River. The river provided easy transport of the wine down to the seaside port of Newcastle and onto Sydney. By the 1860s, plantings began to move further south and west towards the foothills of the Brokenback range near Pokolbin and Rothbury where many of the most highly esteemed vineyards of the Hunter are now found.
caption: James Busby brought to the Hunter Valley plantings from Europe and South Africa.
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