ANZAC DAY Dawn Service 2024 Concord Pavilion of Honour
ANZAC DAY Dawn Service 2024 Concord Pavilion of Honour Robert Lusby AM Colonel Rtd. RAAMC, Emeritus Professor University of Sydney…
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Professor Robert Lusby (AM), to give him his full title, was a pioneering vascular surgeon based at Sydney University and Concord Hospital, Sydney. In the early nineties he and his family purchased a property on Hermitage Road, Pokolbin, Hunter Valley (Tintilla Estate) and set about producing wines in homage to the Europeans, especially the Tuscans and Burgundians, who had shown the way to integrate family, wine and food. Now “retired”, Bob, pursues his passion for wine and food living full time in the Hunter Valley. Bob’s passion for wine is not only in the making and drinking of it, but also in the history of how Australian Wines and in particular the Hunter Valley Wines came to be and continue to be some of the best wines in the world. Bob’s Blog tells that story.
ANZAC DAY Dawn Service 2024 Concord Pavilion of Honour Robert Lusby AM Colonel Rtd. RAAMC, Emeritus Professor University of Sydney…
Bob’s Blog for VP Day 2020 Today we commemorate the “Victory in the Pacific” the day 75 years ago…
Sherry: An old fashioned Aperitif with a long history
At 90 years and still going strong Karl Stockhausen has lived through and contributed to the renaissance of the Hunter…
Planning a Wine and Food Dinner; the proof of the pudding… Bob’s Blog “Just wondering if you can do the…
Rosé steps forward in time for Christmas! By any other name would it taste the same? Bob’s Blog -Rosé has…
Armistice Day Address Robert Lusby AM Concord Repatriation General Hospital, 11 November 2019 “If ye break faith with us—–we shall…
Sangiovese in the Hunter! Our Legend’s lunch this month featured white wines from Germany and reds from northern Italy, just…
‘Around Hermitage’, Pokolbin. and the Wine Media Conference This is the first time the “Wine Media Conference” conference has been…
On the origin of Hunter River Semillon; Bob’s Blog I recently went to the Mitchell Library in Sydney where there…
Around Hermitage in Pokolbin, Hunter Valley There are many areas within the wine regions of the world that have unique…
Address by Emeritus Professor Robert Lusby AM, Chair National Centre for Veterans Health care Working Party Sandakan Memorial Burwood Sunday…
I was a little surprised to read in the excellent Forbes magazine Laura Parker interview with Jo Thomas, of the…
We are fortunate that the Hunter wine industry grew from the enthusiasm of pioneers who were inheritors of the mindset…
The dawn service at Branxton this ANZAC Day saw a record number of people present for the rising of the…
I often think the patchwork nature, small holdings, and landscape of the Pokolbin and Broke Fordwich wine subregions is similar…
I recently was given a rather special gift by Professor Mathew Vadas AO of the Centenary Institute in Sydney, which…
Not enjoying the humidity that comes with a Hunter Summer? Well, you may not know it, but the vines are…
At a recent family celebration, I opened a bottle of Grand Cru Classe wine bought in Saint Emilion back in…
More than meets the eye; Interment and Beyond. Bob’s Blog – Heritage Cairn Rothbury Cemetery We recently went to an…
Today it is 100 years since the Armistice on the 11th of the 11th 1918 that brought the fighting of…
‘From grape to glass’ to quote Pup Neeley as she summed up winemaker James Lusby’s description of the importance of…
Over how many millennia have the expectations of grape growers been raised by the first appearance of leaves on their…
Well, we were all judges at the 2018 Hunter Valley Wine show on Friday 24 August. Not only were we…
People have been drawn to the Hunter from the early days of colonial settlement. Was it the search for the…
At the Dinners Club of 64 recently I served four “older red wines”, none under 20 years of age and…
It’s winter and I do like a drop of Sherry in my soup. Picking up a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol…
Visiting the Maitland Regional Art Gallery in the wet weather last week we strolled into the Open Collection Store which…
Korea is once again in the news as efforts to reach a final treaty between North and South are rekindled.…
Our Legend’s lunch this month featured white wines from Germany and reds from northern Italy, just across the border as…
We live in “interesting times” is a quote often mentioned to explain the challenges we face today. Yet it seems…
We had just arrived at the war-torn Kigali Central Hospital, to join the Australian Medical Support Force, being the second…
It has been said that what people eat and drink reflects their culture and is emblematic of their country. “Throw…
Recently Neal Crisford, producer of “Cooking for the Many” a film about Australia’s first cookbook published in 1864, asked me…
The settlement of Australia which has received some controversial attention recently was a striking departure from previous patterns of European…
“The moving finger writes, and having written moves on. Nor all thy piety nor all thy wit, can cancel half…
Wine-Tourism Hunter as I like to call it, rather than the longer version, Hunter Valley Wine and Tourism Association (HVWTA…not to…
Pokolbin 50 years on…”and the rest is history” AROUND HERMITAGE POKOLBIN HUNTER VALLEY·WEDNESDAY, 7 FEBRUARY 2018 Having a quiet drink…
We have all been there before experiencing a hot summer. Pokolbin is said to derive its name from the Hungarian…
Not surprisingly most of us who enjoy good food also love a good bottle of wine to go with it.…
‘Good wine starts in the vineyard’ is a familiar quote and certainly holds true when it comes to quality, but…
Remembrance Day, Concord Hospital, 2017 “Passchendaele 1917” Robert Lusby AM “The bodies of the fallen were consumed by the mud…
It used to be that the characteristic of Hunter Reds was a “sweaty saddle” nose that would signal Hunter! Not…
About 25 years ago, not long after buying our block on Hermitage Road, I was invited to help write a…
With the recent announcement of the reopening of Lindeman’s Ben Ean winery by the McGuigan and Peterson families I thought…
Mitchell Library and the Hunter: Bob’s Blog Standing in the courtyard of Estate Tuscany at the opening of the Hermitage…
It is not by any accident of fate that the Hunter Valley was established as a fine wine producer. From…
While this is stating the obvious it is becoming more important than ever to define our region as a fine…
How many times have you read wine writers comments on the Hunter Valley and its lack of suitability for wine…
With Bastille Day coming up it might be time to look again at that great gift from Burgundy – Chardonnay.…
At the fireside lunch at the Hunter Resort last weekend we tasted our Tintilla Semillon from 2015 and 2006 and…
The Legends lunch this June featured wines from Italy, and it was a far cry from what we may have…
We have a lot to thank the Portuguese for, apart from the early discovery of Australia. In 1727 the association…
We are fortunate in Pokolbin to have a large number of winemakers and their families that are part of the…
With the “Life of Brian” coming up I thought it timely to look at the early history of Wyndham Estate,…
Emeritus Professor Robert Lusby AM Colonel RAAMC (retired) Gallipoli, Palistine, The western front, Tobruk, Crete, Kokoda, Korea, Malaya, Vietnam, Afganistan,…
With ANZAC day commemorations approaching, it occurred to me that there was one outstanding vigneron and wine maker who was…
At the recent end of harvest Legends Lunch here in Pokolbin we were all asked to bring a Hunter wine…
Sparkling Tintilla Blush with some Granita Syrup from the Two Fat Blokes and a day in the freezer made the…
About 23 years ago when we were developing Tintilla vineyard we had a visit from Richard Smart, the famed viticulturist,…
While harvesting our Semillon I was asked by one of the pickers “how come Semillon does so well in the…
We recently visited the very successful Hunter Distillery on Broke Road as part of an Around Hermitage Famil. It got…