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Nick Ryan described the masterclass featuring two of Australia’s most reclusive but collectable winemakers, Chris Ringland and Drew Noon, as evidence of the bespoke nature of Tasting Australia’s wine master classes. I attended a few of the ‘East End Cellars’ master classes, enjoyed them all but for me the Ringland…

One of our favourite things to do on a Friday night is to call into the ‘fall from grace’ wine shop, run by Gill Gordon-Smith in Aldinga. Gill is one of the most interesting people I have come across in the wine trade, she’s an educator, a wine maker and…

The Royal Adelaide Wine Show is one of the oldest wine shows in Australia, the 140th was judged recently. Andrew Hardy is committee chair and from over the ditch Michael Brajkovich the Chair of Judges. They are supported by six panel chairs, twelve judges including International judge Yoshiji Sato plus ten associate judges. In…

In his piece on the recent sale of Mclaren Vale vineyard ’Connor’s Farm’ entitled ‘Best geologies getting record prices’, Philip White referred to the vineyard being tended by master viniculturer, David Gartelmann. A week or so later at a Hickinbotham Wines tasting at Edinburgh Cellars, winemaker Chris Carpenter commented on the…

Ed Carr is widely regarded as Australia’s pre-eminent sparkling winemaker. His winemaking career spans over thirty-five years, the last twenty-three with Hardys (now Accolade), where he is the chief Sparkling winemaker looking after Arras, and many other brands such as Bay of Fires, Yarra Burn and Hardys’ Sir James. Australian…

In an earlier interview Dr Liz Thach MW suggested the Australian wine trade would do well to focus on ‘Old Vine Grenache’ in promoting Australian wine in the US. At a recent Grenache tasting of our wine group ’The Old Duffers’ we looked at some of Michael Twelftree’s Grenache and…

In the early 70’s a flagon of ‘Red Stripe’ was the wine I took along to a party. If it was dinner it was a bottle of Wynn’s Oven’s Valley Burgundy. We didn’t know ‘Red Stripe’ as d’Arenberg, or that d’Arry Osborn had created it. We just called it ’Red…

Photography is an interesting game to be in.  It’s not always the best photograph that’s the most important. For many years Brian Croser commissioned me to shoot a simple vintage group at Petaluma. I shot some significant landscapes, but in a funny way I’m sure these yearly group shots were…

Andrew Thomas grew up in McLaren Vale but has been making wine in the Hunter Valley for 30 years. I remember being a young press photographer working on The Australian in Sydney in the early 70’s and thinking, the only red wine was big full bodied McLaren Vale or Barossa…