Photo Credit - Kelsey Chance We were on a wine adventure recently and as we spoke to different winemakers from all over Australia, a single friend of ours was playing “let’s find a new friend”, if you know what I mean. He or she may have said to me, give me some intelligent questions to ask, will you? Now anyone that knows me and has ever shared a glass knows I bloody love wine, I love to talk about it, make it, drink it, learn more about it, taste it, drink it, dissect it a

Annoying trait #647 – Wine wankery There’s a bit of an insight into my personality, but there's a lot of people who love this, me, not so much. We were at a wine event recently and the tasting booth for one winery was manned by a young sales professional. She was doing her very best handling enquiries, pouring wine, managing sign ups to a mailing list, talking to people and dealing with an individual I will call “Jeff”. Jeff was on a date, I think, and decided that the desc

Seems the more I talk to people about wine, the more I learn. Seems obvious, but even the greenest of wine drinkers seem to be able to impart me with knowledge of some sort. In one of my other lives as a business coach and mentor I talk a lot about purpose and finding a “why” and it got me thinking about our businesses why and the reason for its existence. We initially set out to have some fun, and hopefully make some drinkable wine. When we thought about it a bit more, we r

This week I tried to expand my wine knowledge by pouring over 150 glasses of a whole host of wines at the Melbourne Wine Show, in just one day. I wasn't judging, there's a lot of hoops to jump through before they let someone like me loose in there, but nonetheless I got a free apron, lunch, and keep cup, as was on my way. Now it's a pretty cool process, there's a big room, with lots of white tables, a metric sh1t tonne of glasses, some really serious stewards, awesome down t

Yet again I've chosen one of those topics which could go on for weeks and plenty of people will have an opinion. Ages ago we did a class with a big manufacturer of magnificent glasses and it involved tasting exactly the same wine out of a whole heap of different receptacles, and yep you'd be amazed how different it is. Now this company was saying this glass was designed and should be used for that variety of wine, you need to do the course to draw your own conclusion. However

A blog on this topic could go for days, so I'll try and keep it simple and straight forward, well sort of. Some wines grow better in warm climates, others in cooler, problem is all the rules are pretty much thrown out the window with a changing climate and more and more growers trying different things in different areas. I have my own guidelines, but here's some vanilla type sit on the fence things to think about; Grapes love sunshine, that's how they get ripe, big and rich i

Today's wine lists can be as intimidating as bouncer on the door of a nightclub you shouldn't be going into. However, getting it right can take you to super hero status at a table of thirsty friends and family. I think there's a couple of ways to tackle it; Look for something you vaguely recognise Keep an eye on the right hand side (price) Don't order the cheapest or the most expensive The 2nd cheapest wine is the best seller, and where you would put wine you have a lot to s