Bimbadgen Estate Winery - Pokolbin, NSW, Australia Review

On two separate occasions we had lunch at Esca with two separate parties. Although Nick and his team have won many awards in the past, the duck was very much dry. The octopus entree was interesting. The server didn t top us up with water and what s worse is that no body replied to my email that I sent to the office email address. Highly disappointed especially as you pay a lot of money. We have eaten at reputable restaurants before and this was a normal dining experience.

While I have always had excellent meals at esca, the new wood fire pizza at the cellar door is a major disappointment. I have ordered take away from there twice now. The first time the staff had forgotten about the order, despite lack of customers. Staff were joshing around with each other on arrival, with only one other customer at the site. Once aware the order had been forgotten, service was slow and when pizza was provided it turned out to be undercooked and doughy. On second try, while pizza was ready to pick up, it turned out to be overcooked and extremely dry. I don't know what they use for their pizza base, but it has a strange consistency too. Getting a garlic flat bread is a major no no- this was bitter and charred. I don't know what they used to make it 'garlic', my closest guess would be they rubbed straight garlic with nothing else on the base before burning it. Don't even bother

Wines aren't so nice here. I had the $15 signature tasting but even then the wines were below average. Wouldn't recommend if you're keen on tasting good wines

Had a lovely visit, great to see the fermentation area with the huge vats of wine and looking straight outside to see the vines in straight rows. Knowing that the wine we sampled all came from the surrounding fields gave us a great feeling. The staff were very friendly and knowledgeable about the grapes and wines. Highly recommended for a sampling visit with nice restaurant.

Nice views; there was a deer! Pizzas were wet in the middle; fell apart. Taste ok. Bold semillon.

We went for dinner because we were staying next door. Our order included 2 pizzas and one chicken salad for our 15 month old. Both pizzas were below average.. slightly burnt on the edges but still doughy in the middle. Such a shame because the base had a lovely sour taste and the toppings were lovely, really could've been amazing. The chicken salad from the kids menu had old tomatoes.. So much so we felt we couldn't give them to our son. Otherwise the service was lovely but the atmosphere needed some music.

Shout out to Benjamin at Bimbadgen. Great Place, Great Service. I have posted rainbow taken at Strathalbyn SA for you and your Granny as promised

Amazing Wine tour experience. You need to book early. Amazing place & amazing experience

Celebrated birthday dinner at Esca restaurant. Found it difficult to find the entrance to the estate at night. Had the two course meal with wine (one entree with main, one main with dessert). Entree and steak main was good. Duck was quite chewy. Dessert tasting plate was interesting, we found the mousse too smokey (lingered long after dinner) but the other two desserts were nice. The happy birthday message was nice on the dessert plate.

Stunning view specially at sunset & you can make some new kangaroo friends!

Great atmosphere and pizza. The wine tasting experience was good but nothing really spectacular

Spent the The Day on the Green here. Great set up fantastic music.
Visited the cellar door the next day. Gorgeous selection of wines

The pizza is terrible! Worst we've ever had. Seriously, coles frozen pizza is better and dominos is 100 x better. We went back to our room and tried to order dominos but sadly they will not deliver here. We are hungry and disappointed. The dough was thick, dry and undercooked but somehow the bottom was burnt. The lack of toppings just slid straight off. I wanted an ice cream to counteract the saltiness of the pizza, but somehow the freezer sitting there was 'closed' at 7.30pm on a Saturday. The place is dead and now I know why. We are disappointed we wasted one of our 3 nights vacationing in Hunter Valley eating pizza that tasted like play dough. Service also bad.

Great Cellar door - enjoy the wine tasting and very good explanations of their wines - you can also enjoy a bite to eat in the cafe space or the restaurant - menu looks very good.

The other nice part of a visit here was the ability to get a nice coffee at the end of the tasting and sit outside and enjoy the view.

Very disappointing. We had the tasting menu. The food was inconsistent and not to a standard to be worth the price. The food lacked finesse and complexity. The 'salad' that came with the duck was no more then a sprig of wilted coriander. Airconditioning was inadequate for the weather making the whole experience quite uncomfortable. Service was slow and sloppy.
On a positive note the wine was nice - perhaps they should stick to what they know best.

Great service, great wine. Even recomended other winerys that were amazing. Will be back for sure. Ritchard was verry informative.

Sensational dinner and great service. Thank you Peter. I really enjoyed the Barramundi special and affogato for dessert

My company organised dinner here last week. It was a large booking where we had the entire restaurant. The service was excellent and the wines were delicious too. The food however was underwhelming. I don t know if it is their standard fare or if it was due to them catering for large numbers but it was lacking all the elements. The chicken was dry and it lacked any sides, it was really a plate of chicken with a garnish. I would go back for the wine tasting but would dine elsewhere.

This has, hands down, the worst pizza I've ever had.

The reviews below me are 100% accurate.

We went back to our room and ordered dominoes.

Seriously get some independent taste-testers in to rate your pizza and improve it!!!

Great day at Day On The Green.
Perfect location.

A Day On The Green Kylie Golden Tour 2019 @ 8pm Saturday 16th March 2019 @ Bimbadgen Estate, Pokolbin, NSW, Australia.

Transport Management, SO TERRIBLE!
3rd World Country Style!!!
The people that parked on the left hand side of the road blocking all people trying to exit the car park, shame to you all!!!
Park on the freekin grass if you were going to wait 20+ minutes for your mates to find you...

Excellent degustation with paired wine. Very attentive staff.

After a tasting at another vineyard was very behind schedule, the staff at Bimbadgen were lovely and very accommodating. We called to let them know we couldn't make it and when one half of my group arrived for a tasting, they fit our second group in at a separate table! It was lovely service and really made my day after terrible treatment from the other vineyard!

Nice location and great wine but the food left much to be desired. I had the worst pizza in my life and in a desperate attempt to improve it by soaking it in olive oil, I experienced the worst olive oil in my life. With some small modifications this place can excel.

Lovely view. We ordered medium rare beef and it came out very well done. Incredibly underwhelming service and food overall

Good range of classic Hunter Valley wines as well as some unusual Italian varieties. Fortified Verdhelo was phenomenal. Small fee for tasting which is waived if you buy something. Interesting to have the cellar door fully incorporated in the winery.

The best view at Hunter Valley, foods are to ordinarily

Great venue for a concert and unlike other venues in the Hunter Valley they allow you to take a chair, your own water and a picnic. The wine is good and a reasonable price. If you visit the winery the day following the concert and produce your ticket you get a good discount on any wine purchased.

I came to the KC and the Sunshine Band at your winery on Saturday and, although the music was great, I wanted to share some feedback for future concerts at this time of year. 1. you should have MORE shade on such hot days at the top of the hill maybe? Also, where the bar/food trucks were there was hardly any shade there too for the amount of people, not good. 2. The crowd was predominantly middle-aged and being made to give up your umbrella (was going to use it for shade!) because it could be used for a 'weapon' is ludicrous at my age + taking away cheese knives for the same reason seems like the 'nanny state' gone mad. 3. Not being able to buy a whole bottle of wine after 5.30pm to share amongst 6 people but being able to buy 4 individual wines for nearly the same price as a whole bottle seems ludicrous too. On the plus side, as I said before, we had a good dance when the sun went down & the music was great but I'd never come to one of these concerts at your winery in the summer again. Cheers, Gail

Kylie excellent, weather wet, $8 for mid-strenght beer a crime

Amazing service, atmosphere and food. Certainly worth a visit to sit back and relax over some fancy food and wine. Got to freely roam around the vineyard and really enjoyed the scenes.

What an amazing dinning experience we had. As usual the restaurant did not disappoint. From the moment we arrived to the moment we left, it was a delicious culinary experience. You will see what i mean from the photos i have posted in this review. Service is absolutely at its best, the open terrace gives a feeling of freedom, together with a spectacular view over the winery. At the far back of the restaurant, a few kangaroos were able to be seen.

I was given the impossible task of impressing a group of people who has travelled more than 30 countries.

I took a chance and went to Hunter Valley and visited 6 different wineries. All of them are nice, but we chose this place to have lunch because I was told this was the best for lunch. And they delivered. Check out the photos, we didn't even bother with filters and it looked gorgeous. My guests were so satisfied and although they struggled with pronouncing this place, they always make an effort of remembering because it's such a gorgeous experience.

Props to Sophie and her team, they made us feel very comfortable. They were very kind and accommodating. When it got a bit cold, they let us move inside although we're pretty much done and would only mess up their other tables.

So thanks to the whole team for helping me deliver a very hard task! See you guys again soon!

Went to see Kylie Minogue on the weekend . I have never had any problems before . I have always had a great time and the food and wine was awesome. Most disappointing visit this time was that after sitting in the rain for 4 hours waiting for her to arrive . When she did everyone turning up late just came and stood in the walk ways so we couldn t see. Where was security stopping this happening. Very disappointed

Amazingly beautiful place to visit. Great views and lovely wine

We had a wonderful experience here (thanks Ben!) with much needed icy water on the bar to help ourselves to. We tried much of the wine including the members only after a special request, and purchased just over a case of wine. Thank you for a lovely experience.

We went for Pizza and wine tasting just after they reopened due to Covid. The place was packed and the staff were a bit stressed, but still doing a great job. There were some really awful customers that came in, and I was really impressed by how friendly the staff were despite all the pressure. Great food (We were at the Pizza court yard) and really nice wine. Highly recommend- we will be back!

Beautiful grounds and great, even if a tad pricey restaurant. Good wine, though a bit too heavy on oak for me.

Awesome range of reds, whites and giggles, as well as a great concert venue

Love this place!! Love their wine, love the service

Went to the restaurant and had the family pizza special.
Lovely atmosphere and good food
$60 for the lot.

Beautiful setting however the staff member that conducted our wine tasting was disinterested and our food was pretty average for the price.

We had woodfired pizza at bimbadgen and it was very disappointing and underwhelming . The dough was flat, i felt like eating toasted flat bread. We ordered the duck with hoisin sauce, this has to be the worst pizza we ever had, very dry cold duck meat on top of flat unrisen pizza, with little drizzle of hoisin sauce. Domino and pizza hut made way better pizza.

Thank you Nick for such a memorable wine tasting experience. It was personal, genuine, and super fun! But - pizza here is over-priced and dry; salad had no dressing at all and we had to ask for olive oil. Below reviews about the food here is accurate.

Great service, their wines are quite delightful. Fantastic service, thank you for a great wine tasting Ben :)

The wines are amazing and service is extremely good a company with real service

This was our second visit to Bimbadgen. On both occasions we ve experienced fantastic service, education, and conversation at the cellar door.

Get there an hour before sunset, find a good bottle with their help, and park yourself on the hill just outside with your new purchase and enjoy the sunset!

The degustation was fantastic great service. We will be back

Avoid. Pizza missing fresh ingredients. Reasonable wines. Based on this would not visit Esca restaurant .

Only went there for two concerts, everything is extremely organised, from parking to security. a little bit disappointed that they only had two varieties of beer.

This was a very unpleasant experience. Firstly, a staff member was particularly rude and unhelpful to not only me but other friends too. Then the pizzas we ordered are probably one of the worst pizzas around. It's surprising as the top part of the restaurant is great with fantastic food. But the pizza part and particularly the service was just terrible.

My wife wanted to come here for a picnic where you purchase a bottle and a hamper and get a blanket and enjoy the beautiful scenery with some lovely wine and cheese. The wines we tasted were all quite good but we settled on the Shiraz. It was an enjoyable time although we later found that you can have basically the same experience on a budget at many wineries by bringing your own cheese, crackers and blanket and just buying some wine.

Stopped here for lunch. Amazing food! Caters for Gluten free and Dairy free options

Great wines, nice food, went to A Day The Green concert, excellent venue

We have the 4 course lunch at A90, each course paired with wine, stunning view, good food, great service, good value too, highly recommended,

An awesome night! A huge thanks to Troy who offered us transport both ways when he could see I was walking with a crutch. The night was full of love and thousands of happy people. Thank you!

Haven't been here in years.....like when I was 21.....22yrs ago! But yeah, when I came here, it was with my daughter, my father-in-law, mother-in-law and my ex. We were just going from winery to winery trying out the wines.....even bought some from here and a few other places...... and ending the day being half drunk! The wines were good..... My father-in-law though.....he couldn't try nothing whatsoever....as he was the driver! So, he was cursing...."Why can't I try any?" "Um.......because you're driving!" If in Pokolbin, come and try the wines.....even buy some! They're bloody fantastic!

To The Owner:
You're welcome! And, I most certainly won't!

CBA tap and pay accepted here on external vivo reader.

Girl working at tasting section 3:30pm 4th of July was very rude.

We had two pizza s for a lunch with some wine. The wine is great value for money for what the Hunter Valley has to offer. The pizza ..... I get what they are doing, simple ingredients, but who likes warm avocado pure, with raw half prawns and some sort of cream cheese. On thin bread. Scattered sparingly. We gave them feedback, but they didn t seem to care.

Food was delicious especially desert.
Location stunning. Friendly efficient staff.

Situated up on a hill, overlooking some beautiful views. Service was good but the food wasn't anything special.

One of the best in the Hunter. Their reserve semillon rivals Tyrrells Vat 1! Yeah ok, not really. But it's still amazingly good.

Mixed feelings. 3.5 stars would be about right. We started with a tasting. The person serving our group of 5 seemed a tad put out. However, the wines were good, the moscato delicious and if you buy a bottle, you get the cost of your tasting included.
We moved on to lunch. The wood fired pizzas were sooo good - I recommend the truffle mushroom and the prawn pizzas. However, the garlic bread was meh and the so called "grazing plate" was a joke. Especially for the price. Stick to the pizzas.
They forgot our bottled water however the staff member with the purple-ish hair was lovely and accommodated the error appropriately.
The surroundings are also quite pretty.

Very very upset. Had my big day in the hunter with this being recommended.

Had the pizza for lunch and it was very awful. I am so upset. Stop recommending this pizza please.

We came for lunch, lovely staff, lovely view but the pizzas and pizza bases tasted supermarket value. More flavour from the food and this place would be great.

The view from the tasting area is amazing. The service is exceptional and the wines were great.

A day on the green - Cyndi Lauper and Blondie.

What was once a great experience, now spoilt by the ridiculously childish but hugely expensive policies on wine purchase. Last trip for me.

I contacted Bimbadgen about booking a picnic, which was going to double as a surprise proposal, and lunch at the restaurant with family. The staff at Bimbadgen contacted me directly and were very excited to help plan the event. They provided directions (so the arriving family didn't blow our cover) best contact on the day, and even set up a private romantic room indoors (with candles, food and wine) when the weather ruined the original outdoor plan. It was perfect, and I can't thank Meg, Sophie and the team more for their help. The wine tasting included with the price of the picnic was very thorough, the picnics are great and include everything you could need, and the pizza was excellent! More importantly the service was above and beyond. Highly recommend!

Don't go there for an event - you'll regret it. Kylie on 16MAR was an absolute disaster, it was the worst event I've ever been into. Even though it didn't rain through and after the show, it was horrible. Whoever thought that making people park outside the site and carry them with buses was a genius- of course the narrow road connecting the park and concert area was jammed and it took 1,5 hours to be able to get in a bus. Lines were nonexistent, officers were nowhere helpful. Concert area was muddy as hell. Sound was horrible and the amount of people drunk was shocking - no responsible servicing there. They should stick to being a winery and nothing else.

Love this place.. had a girls weekend away was awesome

This is not the same place we visited in 2013. Quality of service has gone down over the years we returned. We have decided this is there last time we visit the over priced, sub par service restaurant.

Loved the wines here. Especially the moscato. Would definitely recommend. Would come back here again for sure.

Had a beautiful lunch. Great view and not too hectic on a weekday..

This is where you will have a close look at wine making process. We came in quite briefly but got excellent experience which encourages us to come back and try their services of accommodation and restaurant next time. The lady, sorry I didn't get your name, at the wine tasting section was beyond our expectation. She's so lovely, professional and so enthusiastic about what she's doing so we got heaps of info of the wine we're tasting.

Great wines, great location. There was a post concert sale and it was so much more worth to buy then.

Warm hospitality , great view and some lovely refreshing wines

One of the best wineries in the Hunter. Ample parking, great for families/groups, and a tremendous range of high-quality wine to sample.

My wife and I had a nice wood fired prosciutto pizza and a glass of wine while enjoying the view. Friendly staff and the pizza came out quickly.

Dined in the pizzeria cort yard on Sarurday lunch. Good service, delicious woodfried pizza and omg tge gelato was so yummy. The kids loved exploring the area. Very relaxing. Omly down full was no music was playing in that area. And the 2018 semillion is really crisp and refreshing.

Great place to relax after a day of wine tasting. Sit down on the terrace, enjoy a woodfired pizza and a glass of Rose.