His Branxton cellar door - Pierre's Wines - continues to thrive despite being a world away from the wine tourism hot spot of Pokolbin.

"It works both ways," he said. "I don't get the people driving past like they do in wine country, but the people who find me have come looking for me and are serious about their wines and happy to buy," he said.

"Most of my customers are Sydney based, and I would say 80 per cent of people who come in for a taste have been here before."

The point of difference with Pierre's is that he specialises in sparkling wine - in fact, he makes six with an aged 2013 chardonnay pinot his flagship.

"Nothing beats time with sparkling, so the 2013 has spent 84 months in bottle and has picked up those nutty, honeyed complexities you want.

"My biggest seller is the current release chardonnay pinot which is the 2017 vintage."

Aside from winemaking, which he does himself, he also has his own vines that produce pinot noir and shiraz, and he makes a range of table wines.

"I buy in fruit from all around the state," he explained. "I pay top price, I don't want anything less than the best.

"So I get pinot noir and chardonnay from Tumbarumba, sauvignon blanc from Orange, shiraz and cabernet from Mudgee, semillon here locally in the Hunter and so on.

"Being a very small operation, it helps that the different regions have different ripening times. It means I can do what's required on the winemaking side of things without being swamped.

"I don't get tricky with the wines, but keep it simple and let the fruit shine through. But if you have good fruit, and you're prepared to give it time, it's a simple process."

Mr Went, a former school science teacher, is no stronger to the wine game. After science he did his wine courses and actually taught wine at Kurri TAFE.

"A lot of the Hunter winemakers are former students of mine," he says, firing off a list of names.

"Wine is in the family. My wife Anne's family were winemakers in Burgundy before her father came out to work as a winemaker with Penfold's.

"The one thing I insist on is being patient with the wines, and holding them until they're ready.

"It means I sometimes have a lot of money tied up in storage while we wait for the wine, but it also means when it comes time to sell, I know I'm selling a wine that I'm happy with."

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