Hunter Wine Lab

Hunter Wine Lab is a boutique cellar door at 433 Hermitage Road on Pokolbin's main wine trail, trading 10am to 6pm every day. It is one of the more genuinely dog-welcoming doors in the Hunter Valley: resident wine dogs Teddie and Frankie are part of the setup, which tells you how the team feels about bringing yours.

The dog setup

Dogs are welcome across the cellar door, both the indoor tasting space and the outdoor area, so yours can sit beside you rather than waiting outside. Keep them on a lead so any meeting with Teddie and Frankie stays calm, and a friendly, settled dog is the expectation rather than the exception.

Worth knowing

Tastings lean into small-batch boutique wines with an educational bent, and staff are known for being warm with pets. Amenities are kept simple, so bringing your own water bowl and a couple of treats is the courteous move.

Pepsi: two resident dogs on the floor means you might make a friend. Let everyone say hello on a loose lead before you settle in.

Getting there

The cellar door sits at 433 Hermitage Road, reached off Broke Road or the Hunter Expressway, with on-site parking. The Hermitage Road position makes it an easy link in a wider tasting loop through Pokolbin.

A quieter weekday or an earlier slot keeps the introductions calm with the resident dogs about, and weekends run busier through the middle of the day. If your dog is reactive or over-keen, this is one door where the resident dogs set the pace, so have a plan to settle yours first.

Pair it with

Iron Gate Estate welcomes leashed dogs in its courtyard on the same stretch of Hermitage Road, and Vinden Wines takes dogs in its tasting gardens on Broke Road. A phone call ahead to any of them, saying you are bringing a dog, smooths the arrival.

More options are on the New South Wales wineries guide and the Pokolbin destination page.