People

James Halliday’s ‘Top 100 wines’ were released recently. In a covering piece on this years list he made comment on the quality of today wines compared to that of 30 to 40 years ago. ” I have had the privilege of tasting today’s 40-year-old wines since they were newly bottled.…

A few years ago we were at  friends Marty and Emma Ewer’s house. Marty has a great cellar, and came up with a bottle of Chardonnay. “I hear you have developed quite an interest in White Burgundy, try this” he says, not telling me what it was. I thought at…

Adelaide recently hosted Les Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, ‘Concours International des Jeunes’ (International Young Sommelier Awards) for 2015. Mathias Camilleri a 27 year old Frenchman working at London’s Medlar Restaurant won the award from a field of 14 from as many countries. Heidi Mäkinen from Restaurant C in Tampere, Finland was the runner…

Ian Hickinbotham’s name was one which kept popping up in emails suggesting wine people for this blog. I caught up with Ian recently, he’s quite a man of wine. To quote from Max Allen’s 2012 piece in The Australian (1), “To understand what was so important and influential in what Hickinbotham…

When I started this series I always intended to include wine people I met along the way not only here in Australia but overseas as well. I first met Anthony Rose at a ‘Penfolds Rewards of Patience’ tasting in Adelaide in 1999. I was one of the photographers, Charmaine Grieger…

CHURCHWARD Bottling Club : Celebrates 50 Years. When I started ‘People of  Wine : Ten Questions’, I always planned to include an occasional post on any wine events I was involved in and/or attended. One such event was the 50 year celebration of the wine bottling club ‘CHURCHWARD’. Some weeks…

“This dyin’ business is fuckin’ killin’ me …” These were the last words Big Bob said to me when I called in on him and Wilma on April 1st this year, just three days before we left for five weeks overseas. I’m sure glad I phoned him a few days…