During June 2010, Ken and Gwen Sloan, the founding owners of Mistletoe Winery, invite you to join them for an intimate vertical tasting of their Reserve Chardonnay, Semillon and Shiraz spanning 10 vintages.

This is a “not to be missed opportunity!”

Taste the very best of Mistletoe’s range, over 15 different wines - 1999 to 2009 vintages - whilst enjoying a selection of tapas.

Between them, these wines have amassed an amazing amount of awards and accolades. Because of limited stock this is a “never to be repeated event”.

Learn how the wines change over time in the bottle and how to judge the optimum time window for consumption.

The evening will include discussion on the grapegrowing and winemaking choices that we make to produce wines of the highest quality.

When: 6.00pm to 7.30pm every Friday and Saturday night during June 2010.
Where: By the fireplace in Mistletoe’s Cellar door which incorporates the Pokolbin Gallery.
Cost: $35 - which includes a bottle of Mistletoe Reserve Semillon 2008 (value $24 – 93 points Jeremy Oliver, 4 Stars Winestate Annual Issue 2009).

Bookings: essential! Phone 1800-055-080
Limited to 20 people each night.

We look forward to seeing you.

If you have any questions at all regarding these evenings please call Ken direct on 0411-434-744.

The past 12 months has been an extremely busy and exciting time for all of us at Mistletoe.

A fantastic 2009 vintage for both the Hunter and the Hilltops vineyards has resulted in an absolutely wonderful range of wines.

Some have already been released and there are 7 new releases in this newsletter. Be sure to check them out!

In the last few months we have hosted winemakers Dinners at Revesby Workers Club in Sydney and also at the Tattersall’s Club in Brisbane.

The Revesby dinner was a great night in a knockout venue. The food and the service by the club staff was absolutely first class and in our opinion would put many so-called 5 star restaurants to shame.

A great time was had by all who attended and we were amazed and surprised how many of the guests had previously visited Mistletoe.

A big thank you to all at Revesby Workers Club for making the night such a success.

We had been contemplating a dinner in Brisbane and when Tattersall’s Wine Club invited us to do a presentation we jumped at the chance.

Again, a great group of very interested guests and excellent food and service from the Tatt’s team.

Thank you Ian and committee for the opportunity to present our wines in such a great location.

Vineyard & Winery News

Since the drought in the Hunter broke in 2007 we have had nearly 4 years historical average rain fall. This has resulted in excellent levels of retained soil moisture.

This moisture has produced one of the best starts to a growing season we have seen in our twenty years in the Hunter.

Rain just seems to arrive as we need it and as we said in our Christmas newsletter in 2008 “everything is green and vibrant and the valley looks fantastic; as good as we have ever seen it!”

The vines have responded magnificently to our winter maintenance regime and are covered in new Spring growth.

As in 2008 it has been a relatively cool start to Spring with only two reasonably hot days so far and lovely cool nights with low humidity.

As we move into December we are finalizing bottling and have commenced our major pre vintage overhaul of the winery and all the machinery in preparation for harvest.

As in 2008 at this time all looks very good but we won’t rest until all the grapes are safely harvested and fermenting away in the winery.

An extremely exciting time of year!

Seasons Greetings

All of us at Mistletoe wish you, and your loved ones, a happy, safe and joyous Festive Season followed by a successful 2010.

Thank you all for your ongoing support, it is sincerely appreciated.

Merry Christmas from Ken, Gwen, Robert, Cassandra, Julie, Nick, Kristy, Roger, Margaret and Linda.

Mistletoe participated in the Sydney and Melbourne Good Food and Wine Shows as a founding member of New Generation Hunter.

New Generation Hunter sees 6 of the very best of the new breed of young winemakers from the Hunter Valley showcasing their multi award winning wines in joint promotions.

Although they are still relatively young together they have over 150 years of winemaking experience and work together continually seeking to improve the quality and image of Hunter wines.

They produce wines with passion from some of the very best and oldest vineyards in the Hunter.

As you can see from the photo they don’t take themselves very seriously however when it comes to making quality wine they are deadly serious.

Left to right : David Hook – David Hook Wines, Andrew Thomas – Thomas Wines, Rhys Eather – Meerea Park, Nick Paterson – Mistletoe, Mike De Iulius – De Iulius Wines, Andrew Margan – Margan Wines.

The group is available to do winemakers dinners and corporate tastings either in the Hunter, Sydney or interstate.

For more information email Ken Sloan at office@mistletoewines.com

At Mistletoe we continually strive to improve the quality of all the wines we produce.

It is therefore extremely satisfying for us to have received the awards and accolades we have in the past year.

Some of the highlights for 2009 are:

• Achieving two of the Top 100 Wines in James Halliday’s Weekend Australian list for 2009 – published November 14th 2009.The wines being the Home Vineyard Semillon 2009 and the Hilltops Shiraz-Viognier 2008.
  
• The Mistletoe Reserve Chardonnay 2005 being selected as one of the Top 40 wines of NSW at the NSW Wine Awards 2009.
  
• Receiving 4.5 stars for our Reserve Semillon 2008 and 4 stars and best in Class for the Hilltops Shiraz Viognier 2008 in the Winestate Magazine tastings.
  
• Receiving a trophy for our 2008 Chardonnay at the Hunter Valley Boutique Wine Show 2009.
  
• Silver medal for the Mistletoe Reserve Chardonnay 2007 at the International Chardonnay Challenge 2009 in NZ.
  
• Being rated by James Halliday as a 5 Red Star winery for the 4th year in a row. This recognizes Mistletoe as one of the top 6% of all wineries in Australia.
  
• The 2008 Hilltops Shiraz – Viognier winning three gold medals.
  
• Our first Viognier – winning 3 Silver medals including Best in Class at the ASWS 2009.

Don’t forget, these award winning wines are the same wines we sell to you, our valued customers, at realistic prices.

As James Halliday said in his Australian Wine Companion 2009,

Christmas is fast approaching and what better time is there for having Mistletoe on hand to help you, your family and your friends, celebrate the Festive Season.

Below are a few suggestions of Mistletoe wine/food matching options you may like to consider:

• Petillant ( Sparkling Rosé) and/or Mozcato and /or Petillant Blanc– serve well chilled as a perfect Summer aperitifs.
• Cold crisp Semillon with seafood lunches,
• Chardonnay with poached or smoked salmon or ocean trout salad.
• Chilled Rosé as an aperitif at any time of the day,
• Shiraz,Shiraz Viognier or Shiraz Cabernet ,at night, with Roast Turkey and the trimmings,
• Mozcato or the Botrytis Semillon,with cold fresh fruits, poached stone fruit and cheeses,
• Mistela with Christmas puddings or cakes.

If you are like most of us and haven’t finalized your Christmas gifts why not ease the pain and avoid the rush in the shops and order some Mistletoe wines. No lugging heavy packages or enduring the Christmas crowds and the attendant rush and bustle.

Delivered direct to the door, Mistletoe is certain to please the special people in your life.

Why not reward your loyal staff, customers or suppliers with some great Mistletoe wines for Christmas? Quality wine is a gift that is always appreciated.

Mistletoe has produced some colourful Festive wine bottle neck tags to assist you with your Christmas gifts. When placing your order let us know how many tags you require and we shall include these at no cost. Write your personal greeting on the card and place on the neck of the bottle, What could be simpler? Keep some on hand for those last minute little gifts for neighbours or people who drop in unexpectedly.

Please remember, in the current economic environment we should all be endeavouring to buy Australian Made whenever we can.

When you purchase wine from Mistletoe you are supporting a 100% Australian family owned business that is located in a rural community.

There is a lot of romance and mystique that surrounds the wine industry but at the end of the day our industry is agricultural based and faces the challenges that Mother Nature presents. It ain’t easy!

The dollars you spend with fair dinkum wine producers, such as Mistletoe, go to our loyal grapegrowers and flow into our regional economy through vineyard workers, grapepickers, agricultural suppliers, truckdrivers, and the people who work on the bottling lines and in packaging, agricultural supplies etc.

Australian wine is one of the very few commodities that is produced 100% in Australia. The dollars you spend on Australian ( Mistletoe) wine stay in Australia helping to secure the futures of many including our children and grandchildren!

As a result of James Halliday rating Mistletoe as a 5 star wine producer, for the 4th year running, and many other awards and accolades, we have been extremely busy and are expecting our biggest Christmas yet.

To ensure we get your orders delivered on time please assist us by ordering as early as possible!

Thank you!