The guests took their seats with the bagpipes and drums playing. And kilts of course.
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A short time the haggis came around for tasting. It wasn't compulsory - eating offal, usually minced heart, liver and lungs bulked out with oatmeal and spices - isn't to everyone's liking. But it was tasty all right, which surprised some.
As were the wines, which surprised no-one.
Little wonder, we were in the Hunter Valley wine region and when you think Hunter wine and Scotland - it can only mean McLeish Estate.
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"To give you an idea of how the Hunter wine industry has grown, we will celebrate our 35th year here next year," said Operations Manager Jessica McLeish during a beak in their annual Budburst Lunch proceedings.
"We were the twelfth winery in the Hunter. Now, just over three decades later, there are more than 140."
In many ways McLeish sails under the radar. They have some outstanding wines all right - they have used Andrew Thomas as their contract winemaker for some years now - and have done very well on the show circuit. But somehow they go about their business quietly.
These days Jessica plays a key supporting role in the winemaking side of things.
"Thommo has always done a great job for us," she says. "We've had a lot of success and we like the way he does it."
While McLeish do the Hunter staples such as semillon and shiraz as well as anyone, their point of difference is cabernet sauvignon.
"Our vineyard does cabernet well," she said. "I know that there's not a lot of cabernet in the Hunter - it's shiraz country and rightly so, we do outstanding shiraz - but we have conditions at McLeish that seems to suit cabernet.
"As a matter of fact we're going to plant some more."
Back at the launch to highlight some of their wines the semillon bracket (2006, 2013, 2019) was strong, with the aged 2006 a stunner.
The shiraz to shine was the reserve shiraz from the stellar 2014 vintage, and the 2017 which has a wonderful future ahead.
Another red that made people sit up and take notice was the Tri Moir blend of merlot, cabernet and shiraz. For $25 for cellar club members, it screams value.
Haggis and cabernet in the Hunter. Who'd have thought? Only at McLeish.