Hunter Valley Cellar Door Price Index

You pay the tasting fee per person at every stop. Venues differ less on it than on anything else they sell. The big differences are in the longer bookings, such as tours and lunches, where the dearest costs $1,320 a head.

Median entry fee

$15

Middle half of venues

$10 to $15

Free tastings

2 of 109

Venues priced

109 of 136

Fees as published by each venue, checked between 19 August 2026 and 29 September 2026.

What stood out

1. $90two people, three stopsThat's what a couple pays in tasting fees at three median-priced stops, before buying any wine. It's the first number I put in a Hunter budget.
2. 69%charge $10 or $1543 venues charge $10 and 32 charge $15. Next comes $20, at 16.
3. 2free tastingsAdam's Leap and Travertine. Free tastings are rare enough that I treat one as a bonus if I'm driving past.
4. $5 lessto taste in LovedaleLovedale's median is $10. Across the Hunter Valley it's $15.
5. 4.3×the cheapest tastingThat's what the dearest booking costs at a typical venue with more than one option. If you book one long experience, budget for that first.
6. $26an hour of tastingA standard tasting is the cheapest way to spend an hour at a cellar door. At $60 an hour, a masterclass is the dearest.
7. $1,320dearest per personBrokenwood Wines' Soil to Cellar Experience. It runs for 4 hours and costs 88 times the median tasting fee.

Two prices cover most of the Hunter Valley

By entry fee I mean the cheapest tasting each venue lists. Where a venue has a walk-in flight at the counter, that's the one I've used. Otherwise I've used its cheapest seated or booked tasting.

$10 and $15 between them cover 69% of venues. That's the going rate in the Hunter. I compare every other price against it.

The cheapest and dearest tastings

Only 7 venues charge less than $10 to taste. At the top, 2 venues charge $30 or more.

In my experience, when a tasting costs $30 or more, the venue usually takes the fee off a bottle if you buy one. Ask at the counter before you pay. If you were buying wine anyway, the tasting costs you nothing extra.

Both lists use the same scale. The dashed line marks the Hunter Valley median. Where venues tie at the cut-off, all of them are listed.

Lovedale is the cheaper place to taste

Of the 3 areas with enough venues to compare, Lovedale is the only one off the regional median. Its median is $10.

Over three stops that saves you $15 a head. That's not enough to decide where to go. I'd use it to break a tie between two cellar doors I liked equally.

The other 10 priced venues are in areas with fewer than 5 priced venues. They still count in the region-wide figures.

By type of venue

Wineries and distilleries have the same median entry fee. A distillery stop costs no more to budget for than a winery.

Any type with fewer than 5 priced venues is left out, because one changed fee would move its median.

From the cheapest tasting to the dearest booking

57 venues sell three or more options priced per person. At a typical venue with more than one option, the dearest costs 4.3 times the cheapest tasting.

These 12 venues have the dearest top bookings, from $150 to $1,320 a head. My rule is one long booking per day out, with standard tastings before and after it. The planning guide covers why I book it first.

What an hour costs

Comparing by the hour is fairer when one option takes 45 minutes and another takes four hours. A tasting is the cheapest, at $26 an hour. The dearest is a masterclass, at $60.

I think a longer booking is worth paying for when you get into the vineyard or the barrel hall. If the description sounds like a standard tasting done more slowly, I'd book two ordinary tastings instead.

The dearest experiences per person

Check what's included before you compare these on price. Each venue's own description is under the experience name.

I've left out 3 private bookings that are priced for a whole group. Every price here is per person.

Every venue, compared

All 136 venues I count are here. That includes 25 with no published fee and 2 that offer no standard tasting.

If you're working to a budget, sort by entry fee. For one big booking, sort by the dearest price. Each name links to the venue's page, with opening hours and booking details.

How I built this

I count every verified winery, distillery and brewery in the Hunter Valley directory. That's 136 venues. Of those, 109 publish a fee for a standard tasting. A venue with no published fee is left out of the figures. I don't count it as free.

I've also left Sydney Brewery Hunter Valley and Weerona out of the entry-fee figures. They only sell longer bookings, such as tours and masterclasses, with no standard tasting. Their bookings still count in the experience figures.

Prices come from each venue's own website and booking pages. They're per person, in Australian dollars. Medians and the middle half (the 25th to 75th percentile) use linear interpolation. I leave out any group of fewer than 5 venues, because one changed price would move its median.

The page rebuilds whenever I re-check a venue. The dates at the top show when the fees in this edition were checked.

Use the data

Download the venue-level data (CSV). It has one row per venue, including the ones with no published fee. You're free to reuse it under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 as long as you credit Cellar Door Days.

Suggested citation

Cellar Door Days (2026). Hunter Valley Cellar Door Price Index, October 2026. https://cellardoordays.com/regions/hunter-valley/cellar-door-price-index/

If a fee has changed since I checked it, let me know and I'll update the venue.