Planning your trip pays dividends!

As residents and frequent visitors to Mudgee know, our region is blessed with being a beautiful place to visit any time of year.

Almost all cellar doors in Mudgee are open year round – many of them seven days a week, offering as wide a variety of styles as can be found anywhere in the world.
Nevertheless, with it being a three and a half hour journey from Sydney, it’s certainly worth it
to plan ahead.

1. Consider the time of year when making your travel plans. There is no ‘best time’ to visit, only different times! If you are looking for excitement, go during a festival or special event. Check out our calendar of events...

2. Decide how to get to Mudgee. Choices range from bus and rail (starting at Central Station in Sydney), through wine Touring Trips from Sydney (operators available through the Mudgee Region Tourism office, to personal or hire car – making sure to have a buddy with you when visiting the wineries.

3. Decide how long you would like to stay. Depending on your touring ‘style’, visiting somewhere between four and six wineries a day is a good benchmark. As there are over forty cellar doors in the region, and assuming you don’t have a week to do so (nice though it would be if you did!), research is required! A tip: if you’ve got just the weekend, try to arrive late afternoon Friday and spend two nights, rather than arriving Saturday morning.

4. Mudgee is renowned for the variety and quality of its accommodation choices, from luxury fully serviced and catered boutique farms to masses of excellent self-catering caravan sites – with hotels, motels and boarding houses in between. Full details on all are available on the Mudgee Region Tourism website - www.visitmudgeeregion.com.au

5. Decide which wineries/cellar doors you’d like to visit – and make sure they’re open! (See the full list of cellar doors here..). With the great range of experiences available, decision factors would include the varieties or styles that appeal to you or that you are familiar with, the proximity of the cellar doors to each other, whether they offer other products and services (such as winery tours, food, olive oil), whether there is anything for children and other non-tasters to do, etc.

6. Arrange ground transportation. Options for getting around include rental car, bus or limousine tour, and bicycle (Mudgee roads are much improved over a few years ago!)

7. Explore the other attractions in Mudgee. There's much more to do in the region other than taste wine. Mudgee Tourism will help you decide.

• Don't forget to eat lunch and drink plenty of water during your day of wine tasting.

• If you fly through the Portland airport, stop at the Rose City Café and Wine Bar to taste local wines while you wait for your flight.

• When renting a car, designate a driver who will not drink.