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WORDS |
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| I have been writing about wine in Australia for fifteen years. I am the wine columnist for The Weekend Australian Magazine and G (Australia’s first ‘green lifestyle’ magazine), wine editor for Australian Gourmet Traveller magazine, and a regular contributor to consumer and trade magazines such as Gourmet Traveller’s Wine Magazine (Australia), Wine and Spirit International, Decanter, Harpers and the BBC’s Olive (all in the UK), and Wine and Spirits in the USA. You can download articles from these magazines here. |
| MORE WORDS |
| I published my first book - Red and White: Wine Made Simple - in 1997. Australia’s wine-writing doyen, James Halliday, in his foreword for the book said: ‘Red and White is by far the most enjoyable basic introduction to wine I have ever read or am ever likely to read. Indeed, it is one of the best books on wine of any description I have seen.’ My other books include the Yarra Valley Wineguide; Sniff, Swirl and Slurp; Crush: the New Australian Wine Book; and The Really Useful Pocket Wine Book. Read more about these books here. |
| GREEN |
| I have also established an independent, critical guide to Biodynamic wines in Australia on the web: www.redwhiteandgreen.com.au. This isn’t my first foray into online wine writing: until the dot-com crash in 2001, I was editor of the groundbreaking website, Wine Planet; and in the dim and distant mists of internet time (1995), helped establish one of the world’s first food and wine websites, Hogshead. |
| LEARN |
| I run popular wine education courses in Melbourne - fun, convivial affairs that have helped introduce hundreds of people to the joys of wine (and, in some cases, to the joys of each other). I’m also a regular presenter at wine tastings around the world. For more information about the next wine course, click here. |
| GONGS |
In London in 1999, Red and White: Wine Made Simple, won the Andre Simon Memorial Award, one of the world’s most prestigious gongs for wine-scribbling. It was the first time an Australian wine book had won the award. Then in 2003 I was awarded the Wine Communicator of the Year Trophy by the International Wine and Spirit Competition in London - again, it was the first time an Australian had received this prestigious honour. I’m also a three-time winner at the World Food Media Awards in Adelaide and a three-time winner of the Food Media Club of Australia’s award for wine writing. |
| JUDGE |
Over the last fifteen years, I’ve been a regular and enthusiastic - if rather sceptical - judge at various Australian wine competitions including the Geelong,Clare, Rutherglen, Barossa, Sydney International Top 100, Strathbogie Ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Adelaide Hills wine shows. After a brief period away from the judging circuit, I returned with a vengeance as the Chief Judge of the innovative Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show in Mildura. |
| LISTEN |
In the scraps of spare time I have left, I play mandolin in the near-legendary bluegrass band, the Kneeling Brothers, and - occasionally - in Gerry Hale’s Innocent Bystanders. With Gerry Hale at the mixing desk, I have adapted sections of my book, Crush, for podcast on www.wineaustralia.com - the website of the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation. You can listen to a selection of these podcasts here.. |
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