Vininspo! podcast

I didn’t realise how off-the-beaten path the Osicka family vineyard was until I took the beaten path out of Heathcote and went off it for a considerable time before rolling into this vine-strewn refuge in the bush. The whole thing lulled me into profound contemplation: the sacred vault-like feel of the cellar, the lilting cadence of Simon’s voice, the subtle sustained notes of these wines. A bobbing procession of kangaroos conjured from the scrub woke me from my reverie on the dirt track back. Uprooted from far-flung Velké Bílovice, the Osicka name felt baked into the very soil of Graytown.Paul Osicka Wines was established in 1955 by the first Paul Osicka in this story: Simon’s grandfather Pavel, who fled Europe and settled in Australia. My first encounter with the wines came when Simon’s father was at the helm and before Simon joined him full-time in 2010. Paul Jr. died nine years later, and Simon and his partner in viticulture and in life, Alison Phillips, continue to carry the torch for this special place.I visited Simon after the curtain came down on a few days of judging at the Heathcote Wine Show. It was an enjoyable, eye-opening experience, and I was keen to bring Simon’s affinity with the region to the Vininspo! audience.Shiraz accounted for 49% of the Heathcote crush in 2025, and it is the main focus at Osicka. There’s also a long history of Cabernet Sauvignon, an exciting newer chapter with Grenache, some Riesling on the side and other stuff to come. Simon and I talk about all of these varieties and their place in the region’s tapestry.There’s plenty of insight on the lay of the land across Heathcote, a larger and more diverse region than many realise. Vines were first planted here in the 1850s, and Simon speaks of one Baptista Governa, an Italian immigrant who arrived in Nagambie in the 1870s and planted vines in Major’s Creek at Graytown some years later.In 2002, Heathcote became a recognised Geographical Indication, and these days there are around 40 wineries and 70 vineyards. The vineyards extend some 90km from north to south, with the northernmost sites beyond Colbinabbin and the southernmost around Tooborac. The latter sits on the cusp of the very cool Macedon Ranges, which favour Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The township of Heathcote is located in the southern third of the GI, and Graytown is 30km away on its eastern limit, over halfway to Nagambie.Based in Tooborac, Adam Foster of Syrahmi is name-checked as a ringleader of the Heathcote vignerons’ Shiraz benchmarking sessions. J.L. Chave, where Simon worked a formative harvest, Domaine Jamet, Yves Cuilleron, M. Chapoutier, Pierre Gonon, Pierre Gaillard and Stéphane Ogier are among Northern Rhône royalty referenced here.Tellurian winemaker Tobias Ansted, Will Dredge of Red Edge and Luke Lomax of Heathcote Estate and Devil’s Cave are among those who might attend those Syrah love-ins. All three of them helped out with stewarding at the show. Other Heathcote winemakers mentioned include Emily McNally, daughter of Jasper Hill founders Ron and Elva Laughton; Liam Anderson, son of Wild Duck Creek founder David Anderson; Mark Hunter at Sanguine; Ian Rathjen of Whistling Eagle; and the father-daughter duo Madeleine and Mario Marson of Vinea Marson.When talk turns to Cabernet Sauvignon, I mention the Cabernet Cartel tasting hosted by former Vininspo! podcast interviewees Rob Mann and Julian Langworthy. You can read more about in this piece, which includes the Clare icon Wendouree and the Ansted & Osicka Balgownie 1970 Block Cabernet Sauvignon, which Tobias and Simon make from a storied but imperilled vineyard planted by Stuart Anderson at Maiden Gully in Bendigo.Simon’s good friend Rob Mann of Corymbia also crops up in this story about the Marks family of Gembrook Hill. Andrew Marks is the third man in this cerebral, boundary-pushing circle of friends and he, too, is discussed in my conversation with Simon. Rob was also part of the crop of Hardys superstars and their mentors, all of whom have turned up before on this podcast: Peter Dawson, Tom Newton, Paul Lapsley, Ed Carr, Paul Carpenter, Alex Mackay, Mark O’Callaghan, Glenn Barry, Charlie Seppelt, Fran Austin, Ross Pamment and Larry Cherubino. Stephen Pannell (S.C. Pannell), Steve Flamsteed (Decades), Anna Flowerday (TWR) and Sue Bell (Bellwether) have all been guests on the podcast, and you can also read this profile of Kerri Thompson of Wines by KT.Back in Victoria, Jen Pfeiffer of Pfeiffer Wines in Rutherglen—best known for her spectacular fortified wines—was an exceptional chair of judges at the Heathcote Wine Show. A bottle of Tahbilk’s 1927 vines Marsanne sparked an interesting conversation at the judges’ dinner, and Alister Purbrick of Tahbilk, not far from Paul Osicka Wines, turns up towards the end of this conversation with Simon.Finally, you’re not expected to know what a quincunx is. It’s an arrangement of five things in a square or rectangle with one at each corner and one in the middle—think of the five pattern on dice. The Osickas discovered the planting configuration in the Handbook on Viticulture for Victoria, a practical manual prepared by the pioneering viticulturist François de Castella. The Grenache that inspired Simon was a Châteauneuf-du-Pape from Domaine de Marcoux, should you wish to seek it out. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

David Bicknell’s unceremonious axing from Oakridge came as something of a bombshell. The Yarra Valley estate’s owner, Endeavour Group, had announced a couple of months previously that it was selling up. But it seemed improbable that the man who’d led it for a quarter of a century and put it on the map as a trophy magnet for site-specific, cool-climate wines would be tipped out.Given his reputation for forthright opinions and headline-grabbing wines, Dave has hitherto remained a somewhat private person. Indeed, I had never met or spoken to him before lining this interview up. His public profile has risen since news broke of his departure, but it seemed odd to me that very little of what I knew had come straight from the horse’s mouth.Among myriad accomplishments, Dave was dux of the Len Evans Tutorial in 2005, was crowned Gourmet Traveller WINE Winemaker of the Year in 2017, co-founded the influential Pinot Massif workshop and has chaired countless wine shows, including the National Wine Show of Australia.He joined Oakridge in 2002 and led it to countless wins on the wine show circuit. In the wake of the regal trailblazers of the Yarra Valley—the likes of Mount Mary, Yeringberg, Yarra Yering and Wantirna Estate—the likes of Oakridge and Giant Steps seemed to go toe-to-toe in elevating appreciation of the Yarra’s potential to express exceptional vineyards. Sites like Henk, Hazeldene, Willowlake, Lusatia Park and Funder & Diamond seemed to become household names thanks in large part to these efforts.In this episode, Dave and I talk about Oakridge’s trajectory with Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon. Adrian Rodda (A. Rodda, Beechworth), Tim Perrin (Port Phillip Estate/Kooyong, Mornington Peninsula), Marty Singh (Precipice, Yarra Valley) and Tim Dexter, son of Mornington Peninsula vigneron Tod, are among team members singled out in our chat.In episode 11, Steve Flamsteed spoke about his student days living with Dave and his viticulturist wife, Nicky Harris (the other half of Bicknell F.C.). Steve is another co-founder of Pinot Massif, and there is plenty more background on this workshop in his episode. The rise of Giant Steps in tandem with Oakridge was in part driven by this rivalry between the best of friends.Not for the first time on Vininspo!, Steve Webber of De Bortoli is given due credit here for his mentorship. You’ll find more about the crop of talent at this Yarra estate in my interview with former alumnus Sarah Fagan. From Dave’s Roseworthy days, Pat Iland garners a special mention. He is serially credited among my interviewees, turning up in conversations with Ginny Willcock and Julian Langworthy, among others. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Kelby James Russell had the air of the whizzkid about him when I first met him, and that’s clearly what he was. It was Melbourne, 2015. Riesling Downunder, a now-defunct triennial trade event, had rolled into town. With it came winemakers from Clare, Eden Valley, Great Southern and Canberra. A couple of Alsatians were there, and Germanophones aplenty from the Mosel, Rhine and Danube. And among them, a sole, studious-looking American.Red Newt was the label Kelby was pouring—one of relatively few Finger Lakes estates I was familiar with. He wasn’t loud, and nor were the wines. But both were captivating. What struck me most was that, without apparent effort, he seemed calmly confident of holding my attention in that crowded room. He duly succeeded.It was great to get up to speed on Apollo’s Praise, the winery Kelby founded on Seneca Lake in 2023 with his wife, Julia Hoyle. (The wines are not yet imported into Australia; it would be wonderful to see that injustice rectified!) Julia is winemaker at Hosmer Winery on Cayuga Lake. Kelby tells us a bit about what’s so special about Julia, and a lot about what’s special about the Finger Lakes as a place to grow wine.Peter Bell is the name of Kelby’s first wine mentor in the region from his time at Fox Run Vineyards. Red Newt Cellars, where Kelby made his name, was founded by David and Debra Whiting in 1998, and is also on Seneca Lake.During his early vintages in the southern hemisphere, Kelby speaks affectionately about his time at Yalumba in South Australia’s Barossa Valley. Louisa Rose, winemaker and head of sustainability at Hill-Smith Family Estates, was one of those he met there, as was now-retired Kevin Glastonbury. Peter Gambetta, meanwhile, has been a frequent visitor to the Finger Lakes, Kelby tells me.Speaking of outside influence, we name-drop Pfalz producer Koehler-Ruprecht and Franken grower Hans Wirsching when we talk about the Scheurebe grape variety. The variety was long thought to be a cross between Riesling x Silvaner, but subsequent DNA analysis refutes Silvaner’s involvement, suggesting a wild vine sampling is the other part of the equation. Scheurebe is regarded as a highly successful grape for its performance in cool climates and its flavour/structure profile. (Dr Georg Scheu did the work, and “Rebe” is German for vine.)The Germans also come up on the subject of the international ideas exchange — the kind that takes place at FLXcursion, the Finger Lakes Riesling Wine Conference. This effectively took the place of Washington State’s Riesling Rendezvous. The Australian equivalent morphed into Riesling Downunder, which was last held in 2018. International Riesling Symposium in the Rheingau, meanwhile, is ground zero.Kelby describes the Knoll—the single-site wine that made his name—as being Grosses Gewächs-style. This refers to a textural, dry style of Riesling from a grand-cru site in Germany. Knoll is also, coincidentally, the name of an exceptional Austrian producer known for ripe, multi-dimensional, dry, aromatic white wines. If you’d like to know more about the other Prädikat styles Kelby mentions, a good place to start is this chat with Erni Loosen.Finally, the name Apollo’s Praise comes from a glee named Glorious Apollo. If you want to hear notes whistling over your head like ghosts, here’s the version I checked out to witness the complex, harmonious heights Kelby and Julia’s wines aim to scale. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

For a long time, I’ve been intrigued by Eugene Qiao’s brain—one I’ve picked on several occasions, not least for a reality check and a unique perspective on Italian and Australian wine culture. A Chinese student destined, seemingly inevitably, for medical career, somehow turned up in Barolo and entered the fold of a family where thinking differently is the norm.This conversation with Eugene makes for a nice complement to episode 35, which featured Giuseppe Vaira. She gives an outsider’s take on the customs and people of Piedmont, as well as its wines. There are plenty of new areas to probe and opportunities to delve deeper.I especially enjoyed Eugene’s take on cuisine, climate change, alternative varieties and the versatility of Nebbiolo—including a thoroughly informed impression of how Australia is travelling with this beautiful grape.A little context will help, starting with the Vaira family tree. It was Giuseppe’s father, Aldo, who interviewed Eugene for her role. With his wife, Milena, Aldo founded G.D. Vajra in 1972. It takes its name from Aldo’s father, Giuseppe Domenico Vaira, even though he did not work in the wine industry. (The family name is written with an ‘i’; a printing error in the early days led to the adoption of the ‘j’ styling.) It was, in fact, on the farm of his grandfather, Carlo, that Aldo had his first taste of vineyard work. These days Giuseppe and his siblings, Francesca and Isidoro (Isi), head up the business. They are all mentioned in our conversation.Isi is given credit for the way he assisted Eugene early on, especially thanks to his devotion to Piedmont’s lesser-known indigenous varieties. We talk about his pet project, a vineyard in Farigliano, where this is a focus. The commune lies within the production area of Dogliani DOCG (a Dolcetto appellation), where the Vaira family’s Monterustico wines are grown.Some of the grapes mentioned are the red varieties Freisa, Slarina and Chatus and the white grapes Nascetta, Bian Vert, Manzoni Blanco, Rossese Bianco and Baratuciat. You’ll find these in blends such as the G.D. Vajra Rosso, Luigi Baudana Dragon Bianco and Monterustico Bianco.Nebbiolo features heavily—how could it not?—and among the variations, we speak about the Italian regions of Valtellina and Alto Piemonte, the light, juicy red style the family produces under its Claré J.C. label, and Australian exponents such as Patrick Underwood (Little Reddie), Tess Brown (Vignerons Schmölzer & Brown), Pete Graham (Domenica; read more here) and Stephen Pannell, whose Protero wines are grown in the Adelaide Hills. Steve speaks very affectionately about his time with the Vaira family in episode 30.The G.D. Vajra Barolo vineyards we discuss are Coste di Rose, Bricco delle Viole (both in the commune of Barolo) and Ravera (Novello), while the blended Albe wine is from three sites in Barolo (Coste di Vergne, Fossati and La Volta).Food’s an important subject, too—always, and especially in Piedmont. Apart from the hong shao rou (red braised pork belly) and jaozi dumplings of Eugene’s homeland, the local specialities of carne cruda (raw meat, especially from the Fassona breed of cattle), baccalà (dried and salted cod), finanziera (offal stew) and tajarin al tartufo bianco d’Alba (egg pasta with white truffle) are all on the menu. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Subscribe to this Substack and follow on Instagram so you never miss a story!Liam McElhinney’s astonishing show-circuit success at Lowestoft once seemed to me like lightning from a blue sky. The land of the long white cloud had seen it all before—twice over—but I was oblivious. The irreverent, self-effacing bloke I met during the Covid years, who spun a tragicomic tale of lording it up in a Tassie mansion during lockdown while his wife and kids were sequestered in New Zealand, wasn’t obviously a wine wunderkind grown old and wise. But that’s Liam, I guess; one of the most easy-going hard-workers you could meet.This was an enjoyable conversation with a charismatic raconteur. As is always the case, there is plenty of depth, though—both in detail and in the up-and-down, cut-and-thrust of an ambitious go-getter with an open, original mind. And succeeding, mind you, in an agricultural pursuit that is rarely, if ever, straightforward.When Liam and I first crossed paths, he was in Melbourne with Julian Langworthy, who gave a cracking interview—similarly lighthearted with several serious lessons—for episode 26 of the Vininspo! podcast. Liam and Jules are kind of distant cousins within an Australian family winemaking tree, which itself could do with some untangling, not least so you can get to grips with some of the brands mentioned.That family business is called Fogarty Hall Fine Wine Estates. One of its founders, Peter Fogarty, appears in the chapter where Liam is lured to Tasmania. In 2019, Fogarty and a partner, Rod Roberts, acquired the assets and business of the collapsed contract facility Winemaking Tasmania, rechristening it Tasmanian Vintners. Liam became chief winemaker of this new entity.Fogarty Hall’s Tasmanian portfolio now includes the brands Ossa (founded by Rod Roberts and his wife Cecile), Thalia, Strelley Farm and, most famously, Lowestoft. Liam was sitting amid the grandeur of the 1840s-built Lowestoft homestead on the banks of the Derwent River when we recorded the podcast. This label, in particular, has brought Liam head-turning show success, including the prestigious Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy in 2023.The unrivalled variety—and quality—of grapes that Liam works with in his role has fast-tracked him to being an authority on this small island’s remarkably varied terroirs. We talk about these climatic variations, especially in the Derwent Valley, Coal River Valley and East Coast.On the mainland, Fogarty Hall owns Deep Woods in Margaret River, where Julian Langworthy has made his mark as one of the most decorated winemakers of his generation. Lake’s Folly (Hunter Valley), Dalwhinnie (Pyrenees) and Evans & Tate (Margaret River) are among the wineries in the same stable.Turning back the clock to Liam’s Kiwi days, he mentions formative encounters with Cloudy Bay founding winemaker Kevin Judd, now of Greywacke, and Jane Ferrari, long-serving brand ambassador for Yalumba in the Barossa. The Central Otago pioneers mentioned are Rudi Bauer (Quartz Reef), Grant Taylor (formerly Gibbston Valley, later establishing Valli) and Lois Mills of Rippon.In Hawke’s Bay, Warren Gibson and Trinity Hill are discussed at length with Bilancia’s Lorraine Leheny in episode 44. John Hancock also crops up there, and there’s also an overlap in my conversation with Kym Milne MW for episode 41. The same, in fact, goes for Craggy Range visionary Steve Smith MW (episode 16).Looming large in Liam’s Marlborough years are the figures of John and Brent Marris. Brent played a lead role in launching the Delegat brand Oyster Bay before building up Wither Hills, which was eventually sold to the drinks giant Lion Nathan (now Lion).The Ned is the name of the next Sauvignon Blanc brand to go viral at Marris’s hand, with Liam integral to that growth. Waihopai is the subregion linked to its point of difference, coming to prominence after the Wairau and Awatere valleys.From The Ned, Liam progressed to te Pā, teaming up with its founder, Haysley MacDonald. And one more person who should be acknowledged is Liam’s long-suffering wife, Gemma Lyons. Gemma works for Ossa, but I first came across her during her time with Wairau River, another Marlborough family estate I had the pleasure of working with. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Sometimes it’s easy to confuse classicism with conservatism. On the face of it, 1798-founded Weingut A. Christmann seems to tick both boxes. Urbane 7th-generation patriarch Steffen Christmann read law at Heidelberg and presides over the VDP group of revered growers. The estate’s super-elegant wines grow exclusively on sites classified as premier and grand cru, and their crisp, sharp labels speak eloquently of their breeding. Classic to the core. But conservative? It ain’t that simple.All that class belies a dynamism that has only picked up pace since Sophie Christmann joined her father at the helm a decade ago. I first met Sophie in Melbourne in 2016, when she had come to Australia to work the harvest with Jeffrey Grosset and Stephanie Toole in the Clare Valley, and her drive and articulacy were notable then. She talks about her time at Grosset and Mount Horrocks in our interview.Later that same year, she went on work harvest in Baden, southern Germany, with Julian Huber of Weingut Bernhard Huber in Malterdingen. This is one of the country’s champions of world-class Pinot Noir, and we also discuss Sophie’s formative experience there. Sophie immediately started to transform Christmann into a leading producer of site-driven Spätburgunder, as Burgundy’s revered red grape is known in those parts. Again, we discuss that evolution in detail.I also had the pleasure of visiting Gimmeldingen in 2019, the year that Sophie and Steffen had another carpe diem moment, this time with traditional-method sparkling wine. Again, she shares excellent details on this project, which has become Sektgut Christmann et Kauffmann. Alsace-born Mathieu Kauffmann, the other half of this partnership, was the celebrated chef de cave at Champagne house Bollinger. He was initially lured to the Pfalz by a position at Reichsrat von Buhl before teaming up with the Christmanns on an ambitious initiative inspired by the great terroir wines of the grower Champagne movement.In our conversation, I refer to a couple of other [Vininspo! Alt. Format] episodes: one with Ernst Loosen of the Mosel and another with Cornelius Dönnhoff (Nahe) and Philipp Wittmann (Rheinhessen). Both of those, as well as episode 14 with Gunderloch’s Johannes Hasselbach, will provide the listener with other fascinating detail about fine German wine.Speaking of progressive, the Christmann estate has been certified biodynamic by respect-BIODYN for over 20 years. We talk about the reframing of the range, whose Aus Den Lagen Riesling and Pinot Noir represent the already high-quality jumping-in point. We talk about the Grossen Lagen (grand-cru sites) of Meerspinne in Gimmeldingen, Vogelsang in Neustadt and, in the village of Königsbach, Ölberg-Hart and jewel-in-the-crown Idig.The Ersten Lagen (premier-cru sites) are spread across these same villages plus Ruppertsberg and Mussbach. Sophie also mentions the famous villages of Forst and Deidesheim, also within the Mittelhaardt section of Pfalz. That subregional name is derived from the Haardt mountains (or, as Sophie says, hills), which are the extension of the Vosges mountains (Vogesen in German) of Alsace to the south, the other side of the French border.Other Pfalz friends (geddit?) that crop up are Weingut Rings, Weingut Dr Bürklin-Wolf and Ökonomierat Rebholz, led by Hans-Jörg Rebholz. A touching reference is made to Philipp Wittmann’s father, Günter. Weingut Rudolf Fürst in Franken, meanwhile, is cited as another benchmark Spätburgunder producer.On that note, German Pinot Noir plantings have jumped by 50% in the past 30 years, and Sophie is one of those leading the quality charge. She talks about how the breakdown of her estate’s plantings has shifted over time. For context, in 2024/5, Riesling accounted for 25.2% of vines in the Pfalz (Palatinate in English), while Pinot Noir was just 7.3%. At Christmann, it is shifting towards two-thirds and one-third, respectively.The wines of Sophie, Steffen, Mathieu and the team are imported into Australia by CellarHand, by whom I am employed on a part-time basis. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Andreas Wickhoff spread his wings and travelled far and wide before coming home to roost in the Danube Valley, not too distant from where he grew up in rural Steiermark. As general manager at the Bründlmayer estate in the Kamptal, he keeps the flame burning at what Jancis Robinson has called “a beacon for Austrian wine”. Not an ounce of his worldly, cosmopolitan background, hospitality training and Master of Wine education is wasted as he goes about pursuing and portraying provenance and excellence in wine.I first met Andreas in Melbourne a year or so after Willi Bründlmayer came for Riesling Downunder in 2015. I had long since fallen in love with the grace and purity of the estate’s Riesling and Grüner Veltliner, and Willi himself is the very image of the worldly, wise, humble gentleman. Andreas seemed the perfect fit for the estate. Lucid, resolute and articulate, he is compelling company and puts you in the picture with consummate ease.In this interview, I deliberately milked Andreas for his Austrian wine knowledge, and needn’t expand much thanks to his thoroughness and clarity. There are a few names and terms that could do with spelling out, however.Andreas grew up in Steiermark (Styria), prime wine-growing territory known for its Sauvignon Blanc and Morillon, which, as he explains, is the local name for Chardonnay. Weingut Sattlerhof is the estate in South Styria that changed his life, first through a single-site wine from the Kranachberg vineyard, and later when he joined forces with Willi Sattler.Premium Estates of Austria is the name of the group Andreas represented. Other members included Fritz Wieninger (Wien), Gernot Heinrich (Neusiedlersee, Burgenland), Fred Loimer (Kamptal) and Alois Gölles, a fellow Styrian famed for his artisanal spirits.You can learn a lot about the Wachau from this video, including prevalent soils such as gneiss and loess, and the implications of the three-tiered classification system spanning Steinfeder, Federspiel and Smaragd. Andreas gives further insight, using as reference points the likes of Alzinger, F.X. Pichler, and Emmerich Knoll towards the east of the valley, and Franz Hirtzberger at its western edge.In the Kremstal region, Lenz Moser, Stadt Krems and Winzer Krems are the larger producers mentioned, all of which provide an accessible reference point. In the Kamptal, meanwhile, the sparkling wine programmes of Loimer, Jurtschitsch, Schloss Gobelsburg and Steininger are held up as exemplars.Staying in the Kamptal, the Bründlmayer winery is in Langenlois and other villages mentioned are Kammern (home to the Lamm Erste Lage, or premier-cru site) and Zöbing (home to the Heiligensten Erste Lage). Note that this area’s classification does not yet extend to grands crus; when it does, you can be sure these will be near the top of the list. Other vineyards we discuss in the Bründlmayer portfolio are Spiegel, Berg Vogelsang, and Loiserberg (for Grüner Veltliner), Steinmassl (Riesling), and Steinberg vineyard (Chardonnay).Willi’s wife Edwige deservedly gets a few mentions, not least for her love of Champagne. Coteaux Kampenois is Andreas’s tongue-in-cheek nickname for his multi-vintage base wine, a Kamptal twist on the French Coteaux Champenois appellation for still wines from that region. In another French reference, Hubert Lamy is the Burgundy domaine where a young Willi Bründlmayer did a stage.Finally, there is a reference to the Austrian wine scandal, the mid-1980s crisis from whose depths the likes of Bründlmayer hauled this nation’s reputation before propelling it into the stratosphere. This involved wine producers illegally adding the toxic chemical diethylene glycol—an antifreeze agent—to cheap bulk wine to increase its richness and body. Needless to say, none of the producers we spoke about had anything to do with it.The powers that be in Austrian wine have since done a superb job in raising standards and awareness of the country’s varied and abundant vinous gifts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Like content like this? Get it straight to your inbox by subscribing to my Substack. Follow on Instagram: @vininspo.wineThe simplicity of La Collina’s label is almost as enchanting as the complexity of the liquid inside the bottle. A slender figure, arms stretched out straight on either side, effortlessly bearing evenly weighted scales. An elegantly compact statement, perfect in form, strong and enduring. The silhouette and the Syrah.I’ve long admired the Bilancia wines from afar without having visited Hawke’s Bay or met Lorraine Leheny or her husband, Warren Gibson. I rectified that, to some degree at least, when Lorraine visited Melbourne in May with a handful of fellow growers from the region.I signed up for a double header: a masterclass featuring wines from Two Terraces Vineyard (Bilancia’s sublime 2024 Chardonnay from here is the current release) and a broader regional tasting where Warren would have fronted a masterclass on Hawke’s Bay reds had he not done himself a mischief on the farm that kept him home.In any event, I got to taste the wines, and Lorraine and I made a date for this conversation. I’m glad we did. There’s plenty to enjoy here from this modest and highly accomplished vigneron. The chat is easy to follow, albeit with a few local references demanding further context.On the craft beer front, there is a reference to influential drinks entrepreneur Phil Sexton, who launched the Mathilda Bay and Little Creatures brands. He also established the Giant Steps winery in the Yarra Valley, and duly crops up in episode 11, which features its founding winemaker.The Traditional Brewing Company pubs in suburban Melbourne that we talk about are the Loaded Dog in Fitzroy North (now closed; named for a Henry Lawson short story), the Geebung Polo Club (after a Banjo Paterson poem; now the Auburn Hotel) and the Sydney Liars’ Club (from a contemporary poem; now called the Doutta Galla). Carlton United Breweries (CUB) is the brewing giant behind Carlton Draught, while Coopers is a now ubiquitous South Australian bottle-, can- or keg-conditioned ale that was hard to track down in Melbourne back in the day.Among Lorraine’s cohort at Roseworthy Agricultural College were Nick Delaforce (now making Port at Niepoort), Brian Bicknell of Mahi (Marlborough), Rebecca Salmond of Odyssey (Auckland), Herb Friedli (Poderi Crisci, Waiheke Island), Matt Harrop (Fowles, Strathbogie Ranges), Mike Gadd and Virginia Willcock (Vasse Felix winemaker Ginny was my guest on episode 32). Lorraine and Warren’s friendship with Tom and Nadège Carson of Serrat (Yarra Valley) dates back to those times, too, likewise Stephen Pannell (episode 30), whose family hung out with Lorraine’s at Tom and Nadège’s wedding.Sticking with the Aussie connections, the late Dr John Middleton and his wife, Marli, founders of Mount Mary, took Lorraine under their wing early on. Mario Marson (Vinea Marson, Heathcote) was their winemaker there at the time. When the conversation turns to Chardonnay, David Bicknell (Oakridge, Yarra Valley) shows up alongside Steve Flamsteed (Decades), my guest on episode 11. Taking us full circle, Steve Flamsteed also makes wine under the Salo label with Hawke’s Bay native Dave Mackintosh.Back in Hawke’s Bay, then, Trinity Hill is the estate that lured Warren and Lorraine to the region in the late ’90s. John Hancock, one of its founders and a former winemaker at Morton Estate, crops up here and also shares some history with Warren in the flying winemaker scene, as discussed with Kym Milne (my guest on episode 41). Other Hawke’s Bay names that appear are Dr Alan Limmer, founder of Stonecroft, Craggy Range (and the person who built that vision, Steve Smith MW of Pyramid Valley, Smith & Sheth and episode 16 fame) and cornerstone estate Te Mata.The lie of the land is, of course, very important, and the map above helps illustrate it. Hawke’s Bay’s three key rivers are the Tutaekuri, Ngaruroro and Tukituki. The La Collina vineyard is situated on Roys Hill, just beyond the western cusp of the Gimblett Gravels. The Bridge Pa Triangle extends behind it, and to the west of that are the Mangatahi Terraces, home to Two Terraces Vineyard. The Heretaunga Plains stretch out to the south.Besides Two Terraces, the vineyards behind Bilancia’s single-site Chardonnays are Trelinnoe, Kaikora and Lorraine’s own Tiratore site. Uvaggio is the name of Bilancia’s Viognier, Marsanne and Roussanne field blend. The excellent Kumeu River, just outside Auckland, is cited as a model for these origin-specific wines.At the other end of the spectrum is the Oyster Bay brand. This Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc phenomenon was just starting to bubble away while Lorraine was working at Delegat in Auckland. Founded by siblings Jim and Rose Delegat, the company’s chief winemaker at the time was Brent Marris, owner of Marisco Vineyards in Marlborough.Finally, Cyclone Gabrielle was the tropical storm that caused devastation in Hawke’s Bay and other parts of New Zealand’s North Island in 2023. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

The Vininspo! podcast will resume regular broadcasting next week, back with a Bilancia bang when Lorraine Leheny joins me from Hawke’s Bay.I’m taking a little breather and leaving you in the capable hands of Reinhard Löwenstein, and an article penned as a Substack post in November 2025. Read it here.If it sometimes feels like we’re peering into the abyss, it’s worth lifting our gaze to these towering cliffs of slate, where all is substance and possibility… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Support the show and don't miss an episode by subscribing to my Substack: edmerrison.substack.com and follow on Instagram: @vininspo.wineKate McIntyre got a taste for the wonder of travel young. Her earliest memories were formed beneath the dreaming spires of Oxford, and the exoticism of Europe cast an unbreakable spell. It’s hardly surprising, then, that she imagined a leading role that wove this rich tapestry together. And while the key was quite literally on her doorstep, she has unlocked a world of curiosity as a Master of Wine, educator and self-styled in-house style judge for the family business.I first met Kate about a decade and a half ago, among a trio of inspiring women, with Meg Brodtmann MW (episode 9) and Bree Stock MW (episode 42), teaching Wine & Spirit Education Trust qualifications in Melbourne. Another podcast guest referenced in our conversation is Matt Paul of wine importer Trembath & Taylor (episode 29). The company’s founders, Michael Trembath and Virginia Taylor, are central characters in Kate’s forays into Italian wine.In the world of Melbourne wine retail, Philip Murphy is the son of Dan Murphy, who lends his name to Australia’s most famous chain. Philip built a strong reputation before selling his stores to Coles, the arch-rival of Woolworths, the owner of Dan Murphy’s.Philip Rich and Michael McNamara, two other names that crop up in Kate’s retail days, have gone on to shape Australia’s modern fine wine merchant scene, not least through the dynamic Prince Wine Store business. Kate, Meg, Bree and I have all presented WSET courses through PWS, which also administers courses at Moorooduc Estate. I have the pleasure of teaching these with Kate.Which brings us to the Mornington Peninsula, where Kate’s parents, Jill and Richard, established their vineyard in 1982. Pioneers of the region are discussed in this podcast, including Elgee Park, Main Ridge Estate, Merricks Estate, Stonier and Crittenden (well, Dromana Estate, founded by Garry Crittenden).Kate’s official title at Moorooduc is director of wine business, which entails a crossover of vineyard, winery, cellar door, education, export markets and more. Richard is still very much involved in the winemaking, with general manager Jeremy Magyar playing a key role.We also talk about the Mornington Peninsula International Pinot Noir Celebration of 2013. Kate was the event’s ringleader, and Burgundy authority Jasper Morris MW was the star panellist. Another guest that year was the late Josh Jensen of Calera, a cool guy who grappled with “the heartbreak grape” to produce profound wines in California. Staying with Pinot, MV6 is the clone, with roots traced back to a Burgundy vineyard, that has become synonymous with the Peninsula.Kate also mentions the wines of her Peninsula pal Barney Flanders of Garagiste and Coonawarra’s Sue Bell of Bellwether (my guest on episode 31). When talk shifts to Champagne—Kate is a big fan—we also talk of the joys to be found in Tasmanian sparkling wine. Names to look out for there are Natalie Fryar at Bellebonne, Ed Carr at House of Arras and Shane Holloway and Fran Austin at Delamere.Completing the curtain call is Eugène Ionesco, the Romanian-French dramatist Kate mentions, and his play La Cantatrice Chauve (The Bald Soprano). Other works to check out for those with an absurdist curiosity include La Leçon (The Lesson), Les Chaises (The Chairs) and Rhinocéros. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Follow and subscribe to this show and written content on Substack; see what's happening on Instagram: @vininspo.wine.I met Bree Stock in Melbourne a decade and a half ago, and boy, has she gone a long way since then. Some 8,000 miles away now, she’s appended a pair of powerful initials to her new surname, become an authority on the wines of her adoptive home and fomented a mini-revolution in grape-growing in one of the most revered regions in the US.Brisbane-born Bree was back from a first stint in the Pacific Northwest when our paths crossed in the classroom. She was an excellent teacher: engaging, encyclopaedic, perceptive and plain-speaking. She continues to teach, and some of these acronyms and colleagues crop up in our conversation. Like my former guests Andrea Pritzker, Steve Smith, Stephen Wong and Kym Milne, Bree is an MW, or Master of Wine.She talks about the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET), whose qualifications she and I still teach; the two fellow MWs she taught with in Melbourne, Meg Brodtmann (episode 9) and Kate McIntyre, do as well. She also mentions the Court of Master Sommeliers (CMS), which she abbreviates as “the court,” and which offers four levels of professional certification for sommeliers and beverage professionals.Other Australian contacts who crop up include Steve Webber and Leanne De Bortoli, whose influence is palpable in my article on Sarah Fagan. Bree also worked harvest with Yarra Valley winemaker Mac Forbes, who encouraged her to go to the UK to make contact with the likes of Justin Knock MW and Lenka Sedlackova MW.Peter Marchant is a Queensland-based sommelier and podcaster with whom she tasted after her first long stint overseas, and Scott Wasley is the founder of Melbourne-based importer The Spanish Acquisition—and my guest on episode 40. And the Canberra estate Clonakilla is named in reference to a formative wine event Bree attended.In Canada, Bree talks about the Okanagan Valley, a highly regarded wine region in British Columbia, and the Niagara Peninsula in Ontario. Barbara Philip is the MW she learned so much from while working in restaurants. Wine-growing in the cooler climes of northern North America gets us onto the topic of hybrid varieties, with Marquette and Phoenix mentioned in passing. For more on hybrids, check out my chat with Christina Pickard in episode 12.Bree and I also talk a lot about non-mainstream grape varieties in the Willamette Valley, where Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris—both planted here by founding estate Eyrie Vineyards—are mainstays along with Chardonnay, but Bree mentions a whole host of other grapes she’s playing with. Many of them, such as Mencía and Godello, are prevalent in Northwest Spain, and you can learn more about them from my chat with Noah Chichester in episode 5. (Noah turns up in our chat, too.)Bree’s boundary-pushing ideas on suitable grapes for Oregon are shared by her husband, Chad Stock. Chad had previously worked at the likes of Antica Terra in Amity and Johan in Willamette’s Van Duzer Corridor, while Bree worked an early harvest at Bethel Heights.Chad used to make his own wines under the Minimus label, but these days he and Bree run the Limited Addition label, so named for the ideal of not interfering with the wines they’re making from a range of grape varieties and vineyards scattered across the Willamette Valley. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Subscribe to edmerrison.substack.comFollow on Instagram: @vininspo.wineWith his teetotal forebears and country-town upbringing, Kym Milne wasn’t an obvious candidate for clocking up airmiles and accolades as one of the world’s most influential flying winemakers. But a thirst for travel, a nose for opportunity and a mild-mannered approach to collaboration have taken him from Bordertown to the furthest frontiers and back again.Kym and I crossed paths only recently, when we judged together at the 2026 Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show. I’d been told to look out for him by one of his deeply satisfied clients, our mutual friend Anita Goode of the Mount Benson winery Wangolina.I could immediately see the cause of her affection. Kym has the kind of deep well of experience that is unfathomable to most of us, but wears his knowledge lightly. He’s seen it all but listens intently, and while you sense the conscientiousness that has taken him so far, he is clearly light of heart. I couldn’t wait to get him on the podcast.Much of the context for this conversation is filled in as we go, but as always, some references could do with clarification. Mundulla-raised Kym talks about the start of his career at Berri Estates in the Riverland, South Australia. The winery and its wares have undergone changes through the years; it now comes under the Vinarchy banner, formed by a merger of parts of the Accolade and Pernod-Ricard operations. One of his mentors there was Ian Mackenzie, a renowned figure in Australian wine judging and sparkling production, perhaps best known for his time at Seppelt. At Roseworthy, he studied under Bryce Rankine, author of the seminal text Making Good Wine, and the influential NZ viticulturist, Richard Smart. Richard, who died last year, was discussed in my interview with Steve Smith MW for episode 16. Coincidentally, Steve was part of the turnaround at Villa Maria alongside Kym under owner George Fistonich. The Hawke’s Bay brands Esk Valley and Vidal also came under his purview as Villa Maria. Other notable Kiwis who enter the fray during discussions about flying winemaking projects are John Hancock of Morton Estate and Trinity Hill fame, and Warren Gibson, founder of Bilancia and Trinity Hill (Hawke’s Bay), as well as consulting winemaker Alastair Maling MW.Elsewhere in the flying winemaking years, we come across the Bordelais Jacques Lurton, who is associated with various projects from Kangaroo Island to Mendoza, and Hugh Ryman, who has likewise made wine everywhere and is one of the partners, along with British wine writer Robert Joseph, behind wine brand Le Grand Noir.Grants of St. James’s was the UK importer of Villa Maria, through which Kym made important contacts. When it was taken over, Kym was part of the small group that engineered the management buyout of its own-label division, International Wine Services (IWS). Lynne Sheriff MW helped Kym scout opportunities in South Africa, and Reid Bosward (instrumental in the modern iteration of Kaesler) is the Barossa winemaker Kym installed in Stellenbosch.Speaking of Stellenbosch, we also mention a few of Global Wine Services’ present and past clients, namely Rustenberg in South Africa, Hunter’s in Marlborough, New Zealand, and, in Chile, Valdivieso and Errázuriz. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Ernst Loosen is one of the most recognisable global figures in wine. This indefatigable ambassador for Mosel Riesling pops up all over the place to spread the gospel according to this most versatile of grapes. Dr Loosen has managed to pull off something special as a brand and a domaine: quality at scale and a range of grand-cru bottlings that faithfully express some of the planet’s most breathtaking sites without costing the earth. There’s plenty there to admire, but as a fan of German precision, I wanted to put a more practical question to Erni this time.Erni has been at the helm of the Dr Loosen estate in Bernkastel since the late 1980s. In his time in charge, he has revived lesser-known, ancient German customs by “innovating” with patiently raised, balanced dry wines while respecting the valley’s traditions with precisely delineated off-dry to lusciously sweet styles. When you take into account that Dr Loosen makes single-site wines from 11 grands crus spread across several villages and encompassing all Prädikats, the logistics get quickly complicated. I just wanted to know: Come vintage time, how the heck does he marshal his pickers to get it all done?What follows is the preamble to the podcast, so if you listen to that, you needn’t read this (although it may help familiarise you with place and category names). Similarly, the video below is the interview segment of the podcast, so if you’re reading this, watch that and ignore the podcast. Got it?!The Mosel Valley is in Germany’s west. It’s named after the Mosel River, which rises as the Moselle in the Vosges mountains in France. In Germany, it twists its way up to join the Rhine River at Koblenz. The Upper Mosel, or Obermosel, crosses the border into Germany and winds its way up to the city of Trier. Around here, you have the famous tributaries of the Saar and Ruwer, both of which are home to famous producers and distinctive wines; this area is referenced in my podcast with Cornelius Dönnhoff and Philipp Wittmann.At the opposite end, at the river’s northern tip, you have the Untermosel, or Terrassenmosel, known for its towering stone terraces. This is where you’ll find Heymann-Löwenstein, in honour of whose renegade founder, Reinhard Löwenstein, I penned this tribute. And in between, you have the Mittelmosel, or Middle Mosel. Here, you will find Weingut Dr Loosen and its famous sites.Erni has grand-cru vineyards—the German is Grosse Lagen—in several villages. Travelling downriver, these are Bernkastel, Graach, Wehlen, Ürzig, Erden, Lösnich, Kinheim and Bremm. Using the German convention of adjectivising the place name and prefixing it to the vineyard name, the Grosse Lagen are Bernkasteler Lay, Bernkasteler Johannisbrünchen, Graacher Himmelreich, Graacher Domprobst, Wehlener Sonnenuhr, Ürziger Würzgarten, Erdener Prälat, Erdener Treppchen, Lösnicher Försterlay, Kinheimer Rosenberg and Bremmer Calmont.The Mosel is Germany’s oldest winegrowing region, with the Romans bringing vines here 2000 years ago. In 1787, the Archbishop of Trier decreed that Riesling replace all inferior vines in the valley. A century later, Germany’s Riesling wines were the most revered and sought-after on the planet. All kinds of things went pear-shaped for Germany in the 20th century, and it also shot itself in the foot with wine laws that undermined the primacy of good farming and the supremacy of Riesling and other quality grapes. These days, Riesling is back where it belongs: No. 1 in Germany. It accounts for just over 62% of the Mosel vineyard.Mosel Riesling is the world’s most distinctive rendition of this grape, and that distinctiveness is borne of hugely specific circumstances, to which the river valley is key. This is a cool, continental climate at high European latitudes. That makes it marginal for ripening Riesling grapes (please refer to my interview with Jason Lett of The Eyrie Vineyards in Oregon for a fantastic explanation of marginality). Though relatively cool, summer days are long, with, hopefully, plenty of sunlight bringing intense, bright flavours to the grapes, which—though they achieve relatively low sugar and therefore potential alcohol levels—hang on the vine for a long time, developing surprising depth.Because water cools more slowly than land, the river helps extend the growing season by delaying the onset of properly cold weather. It also reflects light onto the photosynthesising vines. On the river’s banks, the vines climb steep slopes, ideal for intercepting more light. As you drive up the valley, it’s obvious that most of the planted slopes share the same orientation, facing predominantly south for maximum sunshine in the northern hemisphere.The soils are mostly slate, although Ürziger Würzgarten is extremely rare with its red volcanic rock. These extremely stony soils retain and reradiate heat. This exceptional set of circumstances combines to ensure slow but complete ripeness in a cool place where acidity will naturally be high and grape sugars comparatively low.The steep, stony slopes are not conducive to machinery, and hand-harvesting is a key Mosel custom that Erni and I discuss: grape selection for different wine styles. Another factor giving rise to strict selection is botrytis cinerea, or noble rot. Humidity from the river gives rise to misty autumn mornings, when the fungus begins to attack the grapes, puncturing the skins and causing water loss, thus concentrating flavours, sugars and acids. So long as the grapes stay otherwise healthy, with warm, stable afternoons to dry them out, this can reap benefits and is the key to nobly sweet wines such as Tokaji and Sauternes.This brings us to the point of this interview. The Mosel Valley is the wine region that most fully exploits the full Prädikat spectrum. So called because the style of wine is predicated on a minimum must weight—that is to say, the amount of sugar in the must at the time of harvest, measured in degrees Oechsle—the Prädikat system spans six categories. Starting with the lightest style, Kabinett, the other five Prädikats, in ascending order of minimum must weight, are Spätlese, Auslese, Eiswein, Beerenauslese (BA for short), and Trockenbeerenauslese (TBA).Kabinett, Spätlese and Auslese can all be dry; therefore, the amount of alcohol and residual sweetness in these wines varies according to the winemaker’s aims. When Erni talks about declassifying fruit, he means that grapes that qualify for Spätlese and above automatically meet the minimum must weight for Kabinett. In the Mosel, you have the option to “declassify” these grapes to the “lower” category of Kabinett, but Erni explains that this would do a disservice to the category and the customer. (Incidentally, his anecdote about the Vinea Wachau, where declassification is outlawed, involves Emmerich Knoll, who crops up in this Austrian Riesling piece).Beerenauslese and Eiswein have the same minimum must weight and are always sweet; the former relies on botrytis to concentrate its sugars, the latter is harvested when fully frozen. This removes water from the equation during pressing, yielding extremely high must weights. Highly rare, expensive Trockenbeerenauslese is made from the highest-quality, totally shivelled, botrytised berries.The other style we talk about is the GGs, or Grosses Gewächs wines. A GG is the top dry wine from a grand-cru vineyard (Grosse Lage) by a member of the VDP. Dr Loosen, Wittmann, Dönnhoff and Gunderloch are all members of this private band of quality-focused growers. Again, there is more context on this in my interviews with Cornelius, Philipp and Johannes Hasselbach of Gunderloch. In the six-minute video embedded above, Erni talks about the terroir of three of his GGs: Wehlener Sonnenuhr, Ürziger Würzgarten and Erdener Treppchen. It’s highly illuminating and not as dry as it sounds, I promise.Finally, Erni mentions some of the estate’s wine-growing preferences here, such as excluding botrytis-affected grapes from the Kabinett and GG wines. The estate’s Kabinett and Spätlese wines always have residual sweetness (as a rough guide, usually just above 40g/L of residual grape sugar for the Kabinett and 60-ish for the Spätlese). The Auslese wines comprise roughly 50% healthy and 50% botrytised berries and come in with roughly 90g/L residual sugar. Remember, though, that such wines have extremely high acidity to balance this.If it isn’t already obvious, Erni is something of a maverick, and he produces a couple of sub-genres of GG that sort of shouldn’t exist. These are dry grand-cru wines with extra ageing in barrel and bottle before release, and they’re labelled GG Réserve and GG Homage.I’d like to extend my thanks to Erni Loosen for the generosity with which he has always shared his time and wisdom, and to the Dr Loosen team, who were responsible for most of the superb images on the video version of this podcast. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Dubious logic first led Scott Wasley to Spain. First, he figured planes jetting into Sydney for the 2000 Olympics would, once emptied of their sporting spectators, be offering cheap flights back to Europe. And second, he was drinking a slightly stale dry Sherry when that fateful miscalculation fuelled his travel plans with sommelier pal Peter Healy. An Iberian adventure was the seemingly inevitable upshot.What wasn’t remotely inevitable at that stage was that Scott would go on to found Australia’s foremost importer of wines from Spain and Portugal. Based in Melbourne, The Spanish Acquisition hasn’t exactly ridden the Spanish wine renaissance wave over the last 25 years. Instead, the relationship has been somewhat symbiotic, and the pulse of that wave has quickened in tandem with TSA’s rise. Vino de España was barely a puddle in Australia at the turn of the century. In overseas markets generally, modern Spanish wine was far more “modern”—big, ripe, extracted, oaky and red—than it was Spanish. It was only beginning to find its identity and mojo following the slump brought on by the regime of dictator Francisco Franco, who ruled from 1939 until his death in 1975.The new millennium has seen a revolution, and it seems the buzz around Spanish wine is at its loudest right now. My interview with Scott is partly the story of his Iberian Peninsula initiation and partly how the wave has swelled. Along the way, there are many local and personal references, which will be useful to clarify here.The most famous of those are Paul Keating, former Labor Party leader who served as Australia’s 24th Prime Minister from 1991 to 1996, and the late Roland S. Howard, celebrated both as a solo artist and as a member of the Nick Cave-fronted post-punk outfit The Birthday Party. (Scott wore a band t-shirt for the interview.)In the Aussie hospitality scene, Scott mentions working at Universal, the erstwhile Adelaide wine bar of Shaw + Smith winery co-founder Michael Hill-Smith, alongside Scott’s mentor, Duncan Miller. La Corvina is the now-defunct bar in the Melbourne seaside suburb of St Kilda, where Scott was handed the keys by Michael Kennedy.In the same suburb was The George Hotel, whose burgeoning ’90s wine scene was mentioned in my conversation with Matt Paul of the Italian wine importer, Trembath & Taylor, in episode 29. The trajectory of Matt and his former boss, Michael Trembath, is discussed, as is that of my former boss, Patrick Walsh, founder of the importer CellarHand and my guest on episode 4. Further Victorian importers starting around that time were Pinot NOW founder Steve Naughton and Euan McKay, who runs an eponymous wholesaler.Melbourne restaurateurs Andrew McConnell of Trader House and Guy Grossi, who called time on 26 years at CBD institution Grossi Florentino in 2025, also crop up. Other wine friends of Scott’s include former sommelier Peter Healy, who travelled with him to Spain, and Peter Bessey, who was instrumental in the decision to start TSA.A third Peter turns up when we get to Spain: Peter Sisseck, founder of Dominio de Pingus in Ribera del Duero. He forms a monumentally influential trio with Álvaro Palacios and Telmo Rodríguez. The latter two’s projects are so numerous and scattered that it’s hard to keep up, but Álvaro’s name is connected to Palacios Remondo in Rioja, Álvaro Palacios in Rioja and Priorat, and Descendientes de J. Palacios in Bierzo, the last with his nephew Ricardo. Telmo’s famed family estate in Rioja is Remelluri, while other projects include Bodega Lanzaga in Rioja, Ladeiras do Xil in Valdeorras (Galicia), Molino Real in Málaga (Andalucía), Pegaso (Sierra de Gredos) and Al-Muvedre (Valencia).In Jerez that first time, Scott was hosted by Jane Ward of the Sherry bodega Lustau. In Priorat, he visited and counted as an early principal Capçanes, and also met Sara Perez, then of Mas Martinet and later Sara Perez i René Barbier in neighbouring DO Montsant.For more context on the grape varieties Mencía and Albariño, I recommend listening to my excellent conversation with Noah Chichester of the Wines of Galicia Substack for episode 5 (plus a bonus). The Spanish Acquisition website is also a treasure trove of information on Spanish and Portuguese wines.I spoke to Scott on the eve of a Sherry tasting at Prince Wine Store, which also houses a restaurant called Bellota (Spanish for acorn—a food gorged on by pigs that become delicious ham). Speaking of Sherry, Scott has conceived his own, a superb en rama bottling called Albero that sports a label designed by his wife, the artist Leah Teschendorff.And finally, here’s what was on the drinks list for Scott and Leah that night: a sparkling wine from Raventós i Blanc in Sant Sadurní d’Anoia, Cataluña; a dry, unfortified white from the Palomino grape bottled under the Manuel Antonio de la Riva label, a Sherry bodega revived by Willy Peréz and Ramiro Ibañez; and a red wine based on the Mandó grape from Celler del Roure in Valencia. ¡Salud! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

The best way to enjoy this episode is to watch the video, which comes complete with subtitles, maps and other visuals. I urge you to watch it; you'll find it at edmerrison.substack.com. Don't forget to follow along with happenings on Instagram, too: @vininspo.wineSo, when Bryan Adams was getting his first real six-string, Guillaume Michel’s grandfather Louis was kissing goodbye to his last oak barrel. Two pivotal moments during the summer of ‘69 right there; one led to a cheesy soft-rock catalogue, the other to a library of flinty, pure Chardonnay. I know which repertoire I prefer.This domaine in the heart of the village of Chablis is a reference point. “Those who favour stainless steel want the purest flavour of Chablis, with the firm streak of acidity and the mineral quality that the French describe as goût de pierre à fusil, or gunflint,” goes the entry in the Oxford Companion to Wine, before declaring: “Louis Michel’s is generally considered to be the epitome of this style.”I’ve known its current custodian, Guillaume, for over a decade and work for his Australian importer, CellarHand. His good humour, exceptional English and incredible vineyard holdings in the historic heart of the appellation convinced me that he is the ideal guest for an in-depth discussion of the lie of the land and the wines it produces.The purpose of this 45-minute video is to start with the historical and geographical basics—climate, topography, geology, etc.—and delve deeper into the subtleties of terroir and how to mitigate challenges to maximise its expression in the glass. Much of this is objective, some is subjective, but I hope it is all, somehow, instructive, adding to a listener’s understanding and, crucially, enjoyment.Guillaume sprinkles the domaine’s specifics through our conversation, but in a nutshell, premier and grand cru wines account for 70% of production at this 25-hectare estate, turning the norm for the region on its head. He owns vines in the Left Bank premiers crus Montmains, Forêts, Vaillons, Séchets and Butteaux (plus a separate parcel bottled as Butteaux Vieilles Vignes), and the Right Bank premiers crus Vaulorent and Montée de Tonnerre. The domaine also produces Grand Cru Chablis from parcels in Grenouilles, Les Clos and Vaudésir.There’s a particularly enlightening segment about flag-bearing premiers crus. This refers to the practice of grouping a family of premier cru sites under a headline or banner climat. Wines carrying the flag-bearer’s name could contain grapes from various sub-climats within the family, or just from the flag-bearing climat or, indeed, a sub-climat within the group that enjoys less fame than the flag-bearer. We discuss Guillaume’s Forêts, Butteaux and Montmain wines, all of which are grown on the Montmain hill. Séchets and Vaillons grow on the Vaillons hill. On the Right Bank, Vaulorent is part of the Fourchaume premier cru grouping, and Montée de Tonnerre is a flag-bearing premier cru.The maps help illustrate this, and my thanks go out to the Bourgogne Wine Board (BIVB) for its assistance with visual material. It is an excellent resource for anyone interested in Burgundy’s wines. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Get every Vininspo! episode as soon as it drops on Substack: edmerrison.substack.com; follow on Instagram: @vininspo.wineJane Thomson still gets grossly underestimated. Her substance, strength and sensitivity—not to mention a grasp of behavioural psychology that is so rare in the industry—make a mockery of those who dismiss her Fabulous Ladies’ Wine Society as mere froth and bubbly. When I interviewed her last month, Jane had just returned from New York, where she was a delegate at the 70th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70) at the United Nations headquarters. That invitation to the UN’s largest annual gathering on gender equality came just a couple of years after she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for her services to women in the oenology sector.Nonetheless, there is a sense that—in the fragmented world of wine—the founder and chief executive of the Fabulous Ladies’ Wine Society might still go unnoticed in certain circles of the wine community. She is perhaps the victim of a general tendency to pigeonhole people and a more specific, maybe sexist, propensity for wine not to take fun seriously, particularly where women are involved.The enjoyment factor among the 10,000 members of Jane’s organisation belies the fact that it does a great deal of important work. Aside from the value of companionship and moral support, this group has brought attention to various inequalities in the Australian wine scene, from gender pay disparities to grave issues with retaining women in the workforce as viticulturists, cellar hands and winemakers. It also spearheaded the Australian Women in Wine Awards (AWIWA), first held in 2015, which has since evolved into the Australian Women in Wine movement, whose flagship event is the Australian Women in Wine National Symposium. It also supports the wine sector by offering high-engagement tours, tastings, and dinners that drive sales.Jane and I cover all these facets in our conversation, and there is little need for additional context. However, there are some names that mightn’t be familiar to a non-Australian listener. When discussing the launch of AWIWA, Jane mentions wine writer Jeni Port and her 2001 book, Crushed by Women. Among clients of the Fabulous Ladies’ Wine Society, Jane mentions Louise Hemsley-Smith, co-owner of Battle of Bosworth in McLaren Vale, and Emma Raidis of Raidis Estate in Coonawarra.We also discuss the path to implementing the Diversity, Equality and Inclusion in Wine (DEIW) Charter and accompanying Gender Equity Toolkit, developed by industry bodies Wine Australia and Australian Grape & Wine.One positive influence who emerges much earlier in Jane’s life is Australian psychologist, social researcher and writer Hugh Mackay. On the negative side, as our chat turns towards those who promote inequality, Australia’s tiny-minded, right-wing populist political party, One Nation, crops up. Cory Bernardi, Australian politician and leader of One Nation South Australia, is invoked as a “big name”, but maybe you have never heard of him, and hopefully you never will. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Get all these stories as soon as they drop bt subscribing to ed.merrison.substack.comFollow on Instagram: @vininspo.wineThere’s a moment in our interview where Stephen Wong talks about playing twin tracks of his life in tandem, a micro-focused intellectual yin and an expansive, warmly hospitable yang, perhaps. Had the yin lacked the yang, perhaps he would have remained a respectable barrister and had his life mapped out for him, just as it was for his Singaporean boarding school classmates. As it happened, chance encounters with Central Otago winemakers and a student job in a Thai restaurant turned this brilliant mind onto wine, in all its aesthetic, scientific, historical, sociological and cultural glory. Wine fought the law, and the wine won.Stephen is a Wellington-based Master of Wine, and Wine Sentience is effectively the business banner under which he carries out his roles as consultant, educator, wine judge, reviewer, presenter, and more. I’ve known of Stephen for a long time, but we finally met in November 2025 as panel chairs at the Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show in Mildura. Each of our conversations felt tantalisingly short because so many interesting threads emerged, demanding to be tugged on. I suspect everyone who speaks to Stephen experiences the same thing.No surprise, then, that this conversation ran a little long. There are quite a few names that come up; I will try to cover most of them in these show notes. Among early influences in New Zealand, Stephen mentions his fellow MW and Real Review contributor Jane Skilton, as well as winemaker Carol Bunn (once dubbed the queen of Central Otago Pinot), wholesale wine rep Christine Comerford, hospitality doyenne Wendy Morgan (née Hillyer), late wine critic Raymond Chan, late industry giant John Follas, Gibbston Valley founder Alan Brady and Quartz Reef winemaker Rudi Bauer (both in Central Otago).Speaking of the Master of Wine, Stephen mentions the first seminar he attended in Australia, hosted by Andrew Caillard MW, at which he encountered Ned Goodwin MW, Andrea Pritzker MW (my guest on episode 2) and Sydney sommelier Sophie Otton. Dr Liz Thach MW is the wine writer he namechecks from his eye-opening first trip to Napa.In the segment about “natural wine”—taken here to loosely connote wines free from additions or compulsions to be strait-laced adherents to the edicts of the conventional or mainstream scene—Stephen mentions the influential MW and RAW Wine founder Isabelle Legeron MW. Henry Hariyono, then of Artisan Cellars, was the influential natural wine and grower Champagne aficionado who introduced Stephen to the wines of Jacques Selosse and Marie Courtin. The wines of Joško Gravner and the late Stanko Radikon are mentioned when we talk about the inaptitude of the existing wine lexicon to describe orange and natural wines; the same goes for the Pinot Noir of Burgundy’s Philippe Pacalet.On a more traditional level, great Côte d’Or producers include Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé, Domaine des Comtes Lafon, Domaine Armand Rousseau, Domaine Georges Roumier, and Domaine Jacques-Frédéric Mugnier. The expression Parker wines refers to the oft-cited, outsized influence of the critic Robert Parker (founder of The Wine Advocate) and his penchant for big, rich, ripe wines.Finishing with the contemporary New Zealand scene, Stephen mentions the recent deaths of Dog Point co-founder James Healy and Tim Finn of Neudorf, whose wife Judy joined me for episode 34. Elephant Hill (Hawke’s Bay), Seresin, Fromm and Churton (all Marlborough) are cited as famous wineries for sale. When Stephen talks of the rise of the cru or lieu-dit in New Zealand—sites that make a name for themselves with wines of consistently high quality and discernible character—he mentions Churton, as well as Wrekin (Marlborough), Calvert (Central Otago) and Two Terraces (Hawke’s Bay), as well as the terroir-led endeavours of Smith + Sheth and Pyramid Valley, both of which count Steve Smith MW (episode 16) as their modern mastermind.In other matters, Stephen mentions reviewing the VDP’s Grosses Gewächs (grand-cru dry bottlings) wines; you can hear more about Germany’s VDP from my chat with Cornelius Dönnhoff and Philipp Wittmann. Finally, we have a fascinating discussion about alternative ways to convey and communicate wine, where Stephen talks about the tech solution he worked on, Stompy/TasteMPR, with his old university friend, Andy Williams. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Don't miss an episode! Subscribe on SubstackInstagram: @vininspo.wineFelicity Carter is in demand. It would probably be better for us wine-lovers if she weren’t—but if anyone is fit to report on a wine industry in crisis, it’s this globe-trotting journalist who’s made it her business to cover the business of wine from all angles..Australia-born Felicity resides in Germany, where she served for many years as the editor-in-chief of Meininger’s Wine Business International. She joined the publication when it had 800 subscribers and, harnessing a team of correspondents, turned it into an indispensable trade magazine read in 38 countries. The publication closed in June 2025, four years after Felicity called time on her 12-year stint there.These days, Felicity reports on all things drinks on her Substack, Drinks Insider, which has a podcast element. Last year, she won the 67 Pall Mall Global Wine Communicator Award for Best Audio for an episode that aired on its sub-podcast, Wine + Health. The subject of that episode was the alcohol J-curve—the idea that moderate consumption has a positive health impact, while harms rise precipitously as intake increases. Felicity’s robust interview with Professor Tim Stockwell, who has become the central figure in attempts to debunk the J-curve, is highly recommended and can be found here.Felicity and I discuss this subject at length, as well as the serious harms associated with excessive alcohol consumption and her mission to provide balance to an argument that is increasingly skewed towards “denormalising” drinking and treating alcohol like tobacco. Another fascinating area of Felicity’s reporting has been on the reinvention of historic temperance groups as public health bodies, such as Movendi International. We speak about how an alliance of activists, scientists and NGOs attempts to influence policy.One strong voice on the other side of the argument is Argentina’s Dr Laura Catena, the physician and fourth-generation vigneron who serves as managing director of Bodega Catena Zapata in Mendoza. Felicity mentions Dr Catena when she reels off her recent speaking duties. We also discuss another source of balance to this argument: Unati (University of Navarra Alumni Trialist Initiative), which seeks to establish whether there is such a thing as healthy drinking via a randomised clinical trial.Our conversation also delves into marketing, a key subject on the Question of Drinks podcast that Felicity co-hosts with the UK-based founder of Wine Intelligence, Lulie Halstead. Marketing and research also fall within the remit of London-headquartered fine-wine think tank Areni Global. Felicity is the group’s editorial director and alludes to Areni Global co-founder Nicole Rolet. We discuss a recent research project undertaken by Areni executive director Pauline Vicard in collaboration with Berry Bros & Rudd, 67 Pall Mall and LVMH Vins d’Exception.A couple of other references that need explaining are Edward Slingerland’s book, whose excellent subtitle I couldn’t recall, Drunk—How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilisation, and Felicity’s interview with Kirk French, the Penn State professor who developed the hugely popular Anthropology of Alcohol (aka Booze and Culture) course. We also mention T-shirtgate, a mischievous reference to the controversy surrounding a group of future leaders of the Aussie wine industry—the Coonawarra Vignerons’ Next Crop cohort—who landed in hot water for appearing in a photograph wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the slogan Drink More, Die Younger. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

“1663 is just a number,” Philipp Wittmann tells me, and in some ways it is. But also, 350-plus years of growing fruit in your village is likely to give you some kind of edge. The Dönnhoff family’s farming roots in the Nahe are shallower—a mere 270 years—and it’s true that it was Cornelius’s father, the preternaturally gifted Helmut Dönnhoff, who shot this estate to fame. Cornelius and his friend Philipp are among the world’s best growers of white wine, and their ideas have all the cut, clarity and refreshment factor of their Rieslings.This fantastic conversation took place when the men heading Weingut Wittmann in Westhofen in the Rheinhessen and Weingut Dönnhoff in the Nahe were visiting their Australian importer, CellarHand—my part-time employer, whose support made this episode possible. We sat down for an hour-long chat in which I grilled them on their respective regions, villages and sites, their approaches to Riesling and ‘the Burgundy varieties’ (Weissburgunder or Pinot Blanc, Grauburgunder or Pinot Gris, plus Pinot Noir and Chardonnay) and their overarching thoughts on German and global fine wine that professes to express its origin.Though, of course, there is specific and esoteric material here, I have deliberately recorded this with a broad audience in mind. Yes, those with an interest in German wine have the most to gain, but as is always the case with Vininspo!, I fervently believe that these topics provide context for a broader appreciation of wine and the world—a lens through which to view it with more colour, definition and delight. This episode should serve as a conversation starter, or furtherer, in itself.Speaking of context, though, it’s best to go into this knowing a few things about the estates and their wines. Weingut Wittmann is situated south of Nackehnheim, the Rhine-front Rheinhessen region from which Johannes Hasselbach hails, and east of Oberhausen an der Nahe, home of the Dönnhoff estate. Eleventh-generation winegrower Philipp has vines in a couple of Grosse Lagen (grand-cru designated sites) in Nierstein, the neighbouring village to Nackenheim, but his main vineyard sources are in Westhofen, where you’ll find his Grosse Lagen Aulerde, Kirchspiel, Brunnenhäuschen and Morstein. He has one other grand cru, Höllenbrand, on the similarly limestone-rich soils of Gundersheim.Philipp is married to the hugely talented Eva Clüsserath, whom he met at the famous Geisenheim University in the Rheingau region on the right bank of the Rhine, north of Nahe/Rheinhessen. Eva is in charge of her family’s Ansgar Clüsserath estate in the village of Trittenheim in the Mosel Valley. We briefly discuss these wines.Cornelius Dönnhoff’s sites in the Nahe Valley are only about a 45-minute drive west of Philipp, but the soils, climate and landscape are very different. The Nahe River snakes its way up to join the Rhine at Bingen, opposite Rüdesheim in the Rheingau. Cornelius lists his villages/sites as you head up the river, i.e. heading south/southwest from its confluence with the Rhine. We talk about the following vineyards: Höllenpfad in Roxheim; Kahlenberg and Krötenpfuhl in Bad Kreuznach; Dellchen and Kirschheck in Norheim; Klamm and Hermannshöhle in Niederhasuen; Leistenberg and Brücke in Oberhausen; and Kupfergrube and Felsenberg in Schlossböckelheim.With his Nahe vineyards severely hit by frost in 2024, Cornelius sourced grapes from Philipp and from their friend Nicola Libelli, winemaker at the Dr Bürklin-Wolf estate in the Pfalz region, to the south of Rheinhessen.We inevitably discuss German wine labels and law, but please don’t be put off! It is articulated well. There is some discussion of the notorious German Wine Law of 1971. This enshrined the practice of predicating (hence the word Prädikat) German quality levels upon the ripeness of the grapes at harvest.Kabinett is the lightest, followed by Spätlese and Auslese. Crucially, all these wines can be dry or sweet, depending on the winemaker’s choice. (Usually, it boils down to whether he or she decides to stop the fermentation before the yeasts consume all the sugars.) Since Auslese is made with the ripest grapes, the sweetest ones can be fully sweet or luscious, while Kabinett tends to be dry, off-dry or semi-dry, and Spätlese is never sweet enough to be a dessert wine.The Germans also refer to these wines with residual sweetness as “fruity”, as opposed to dry. Dönnhoff is a master of all these styles, and Cornelius explains the challenge well. Eiswein, Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese are the ripest Prädikat styles, all lusciously sweet, and the latter two are made with nobly rotten (botrytised) grapes.Wittmann and Dönnhoff are both members of the VDP (Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter). This is an association of 200-odd winegrowers, whose mission in recent decades has been to address some of the “unfortunate consequences” of that ’71 law. We discuss these in the podcast, along with the VDP’s aim to emphasise origin and quality grape-growing practices as key determinants of quality. The VDP quality pyramid contains four ascending tiers as fruit origin decreases in size and increases in pedigree: Gutswein (estate), Ortswein (village), Erste Lage (Premier Cru) and Grosse Lage (grand cru). A VDP member’s top dry wine from a Grosse Lage is labelled as a Grosses Gewächs or GG. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

I don’t remember when I first became aware of Eyrie’s existence. It just isn’t possible to interact with Pinot Noir obsessives without this domaine coming to your attention. It owes its existence to a pioneering pinotphile who bet the farm on the entirely untested potential of the Dundee Hills to grow wines whose long-lived beauty would resonate across the globe. The Willamette Valley is now one of the stars around which the Pinot world revolves, and The Eyre Vineyards lies at its core.Vininspo! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.My first conversation with Jason came a couple of years ago. It was an information-gathering exercise back then; the kind of chat where you’re digging for facts, not words of wisdom. But I was struck by how clearly his thoughts—from an incisive, open mind that didn’t profess to be right about everything—deserved to be weighed by a far wider audience.The estate was founded in 1965 by David Lett and his wife, Diana. It’s impossible to talk about Eyrie without delving into the character nicknamed Papa Pinot, and Jason shares plenty of insight on the estate’s foundations. The handover of the reins was a protracted, sometimes difficult, process, and Jason took the lead at Eyrie in 2005. That was three years before David’s death, after which Jason and Diana continued as co-owners. He pays tribute to his mother’s enormous contribution here.If Oregon hasn’t been on your radar, this conversation offers excellent insight and context. However, a few names warrant explanation. Jason talks about what David Lett learned at the University of California, Davis, including his close friendships with men who went on to establish estates in the Willamette Valley: Charles Coury (Charles Coury Vineyard) and Bill Fuller (Tualatin Vineyards). He also mentions David Adelsheim, who worked at Eyrie and went on to found Adelsheim Vineyard in 1971, the same year that Bill Blosser, also mentioned, planted the first vines at Sokol Blosser in the Dundee Hills.Jason refers to Victor Pulliat’s book, Mille Variétés de Vignes, Description et Synonymies, which was instrumental in David Lett’s choice to plant Melon de Bourgogne, Muscat Ottonel, Meunier, Riesling and Gewürztraminer alongside his Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. These were classified as Period One grapes, meaning they could ripen in the coolest climates where winegrowing was considered viable. Jason has since opted against Riesling and Gewürz and added Trousseau, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc and Chasselas to the roster. This last one was noticed by prominent Swiss viticulture researcher and family friend, Werner Koblet.Other important influences referenced are André Tchelistcheff, the long-serving winemaker at Beaulieu Vineyards, a star who led the post-Prohibition flowering of the Californian wine scene. Becky Wasserman-Hone, meanwhile, was the barrel broker-turned-influential importer who inadvertently got Eyrie noticed on the global stage. She was instrumental in facilitating the Letts’ friendships in Burgundy. In that Pinot motherland, Michel Lafarge (Domaine Michel Lafarge in Volnay), Gérard Potel (known for his mythical wines at Domaine de la Pousse D’Or) and Lalou Bize-Leroy (Domaine Leroy) are mentioned. Looming even larger, thanks to their faith in Oregon’s terroir, is the Drouhin family of Maison Joseph Drouhin in Beaune and Domain Drouhin in the Willamette Valley.The Eyrie wines are not currently being imported into Australia, which is a dreadful shame. I hope someone will be game to take up the mantle. In any case, The Eyrie Vineyards has a tasting room in McMinnville, Oregon. I’ve never visited, but I hope to one day. I know the Lett family and their team would love to see you, so get there if you can. “In a region of increasingly opulent tasting rooms, the historic Eyrie Vineyards keeps the focus on the beauty inside the glass,” was Wine Enthusiast’s verdict. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Giuseppe Vaira is one of those tireless torchbearers whose faith in his region is matched by an exemplary work ethic, the uniformly beautiful results of which constantly justify and fuel that belief. It’s a virtuous cycle that has seen many people fall in love with the Langhe through these wines.The first time I met him was at the family winery in Vergne when I was taking time off from an assignment at a trade fair in Milan. He’d just landed home from a trade trip in steamy Singapore, jet-lagged and jaded from pouring Nebbiolo in 35-degree heat, when my family and I were halfway through a tasting. His mother, Milena, told him we were visitors from England. He plunged immediately into consummate host mode.I have the good fortune to know him pretty well now, having worked with the family’s wines for the past seven years with his Australian importer. This conversation took place at the end of January 2026 at the start of a five-day trade visit. It should be easy to follow, but it is useful to have a handle on the estate’s makeup, as well as the Piedmontese luminaries that crop up.G.D. Vajra was founded in 1972 by Giuseppe’s father, Aldo. It takes its name from Aldo’s father, Giuseppe Domenico Vaira, even though he did not work in the wine industry. (The family name is written with an ‘i’; a printing error in the early days led to the adoption of the ‘j’ styling.) It was, in fact, on Giuseppe’s great-grandfather’s farm that Aldo had his first taste of vineyard work. Aldo and Milena are still involved in the business, which is headed by Giuseppe and his siblings, Francesca and Isidoro (Isi).Vergne is in Barolo, one of the 11 communes that make up the Barolo production area. This commune is home to the family’s most famous vineyard, Bricco delle Viole, as well as Coste di Rose. G.D. Vajra also produces Barolo from the neighbouring commune of Novello (the Ravera MGA or Menzione Geografica Aggiuntiva). In 2009, the family purchased the Luigi Baudana estate in Serralunga d’Alba on the eastern side of Barolo, and we speak about the climatic and geological differences between these two areas. Broadly speaking, the soils of the east are generally referred to as Serravallian (the term Helvetian was formerly used), while Tortonian soils characterise the northwestern communes of Barolo and La Morra, which are closer to the Tanaro River. While acknowledging the inadequacies of these generalisations, the former tend to feature less fertile, yellow-grey compacted sand and clay, and the latter, younger, more fertile blue-grey marl.Giuseppe and I discuss a range of grape varieties, from lesser-known heirloom grapes making a comeback to the more celebrated mainstays that enjoy solid reputation on international wine lists. In the former camp are the likes of Naschetta, Slarina, Chatus (aka Nebbiolo di Dronero) and Freisa. Anna Schneider and Stefano Raimondi are the renowned ampelographers associated with the University of Turin who have helped identify and revive some of these traditional, forgotten varieties. On the more mainstream front, we talk about the three key reds: Dolcetto, Barbera and Nebbiolo, this last responsible for the Barolo and Barbaresco wines that are the pride of Piedmont.In our chat, I refer to an anecdote that came up in Aldo Vaira’s appearance on Levi Dalton’s I’ll Drink to That podcast. It concerns an encounter with some late legends of Barolo: Aldo Conterno (his brother Giovanni also gets a mention), Bartolo Mascarello (whose daughter Maria Teresa is mentioned) and Dogliani great Quinto Chionetti. (As an aside, the Vaira family also produce wines from Piedmont’s Dogliani region under their Monterustico label.) Beppe Colla, whose name is synonymous with the great Prunotto wines and who later founded his own Poderi Colla label, appears a couple of times. Angelo Gaja, Beppe Rinaldi and Bruno Giacosa, each attached to an eponymous label, also crop up. Of them, only Angelo Gaja is still alive.Our conversation also dips into a couple of cultural areas. One concerns the so-called Barolo Boys and the 1980s divide that opened up in the area between the aforementioned modernists and traditionalists, the former espousing the use of smaller, newer French oak barriques for softer, slow-maturing wines as opposed to the more backward, reticent, slower-maturing wines traditionally aged in larger, older Slavonian oak botti. And, a different slant on aesthetics, we discuss the influence and artworks of Father Costantino Ruggieri, who designed the G.D. Vajra winery’s beautiful stained glass windows, and Gianni Gallo, whose gorgeous works adorn the family’s labels, as well as those of Vietti and Bruno Rocca. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Pioneer stories always draw me in. No matter how niche the thing—and Nelson might still be considered niche—sticking vines in the dirt with no grounds for belief that your venture will bear fruit is a leap of faith to marvel at. Judy Finn says they got by on “hard work, high hopes and a dollop of common sense and cunning”. It seems a sense of humour—and of the absurd—played a part.Judy co-founded Neudorf Vineyards with her late husband Tim, back in 1978. She tells me the place was suffused with the pioneering spirit when they arrived. Their predecessors—many of German extraction, hence the name of the estate (neu is new and Dorf means village)—had planted all sorts of things, and traces of instinct and ingenuity abounded. There was also another winery, Seifried Estate (established 1973), and Judy credits Hermann Seifried with being exceptionally supportive over the years.Neudorf is nestled in the Moutere Hills in the centre of the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island. It often has the country’s highest sunshine hours, while mountain ranges to the east, south and west provide rain shadow and Tasman Bay to the north moderates its maritime climate. This BioGro-certified organic farm has long been known for its Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, while Albariño has made a name for itself as a new kid on the block.Speaking of new kids on the block, Judy and Tim’s daughter, Rosie, took over the reins a few years ago. Her mother and I talk about what this breath of fresh, youthful air has brought to the estate as its self-styled global cheerleader. Rosie worked in London alongside powerhouse NZ wine ambassador Melanie Brown, whose previous credits include working alongside Peter Gordon at The Providores and founding The New Zealand Cellar. Mel is now owner, founder and chef-restaurateur of The Laundry in Brixton. Judy and I also talk about Tim, whom I never met, a widely loved, influential and (by all accounts) deeply interesting man. He died in October 2025 after a long struggle with his health.Todd Stevens is Neudorf’s long-serving winemaker and general manager, having taken over after John Kavanagh was head-hunted by Te Kairanga in 2012. A couple of other names crop up in connection with this move. Nigel Greening, owner of Felton Road, suggested Todd—who was then assisting this great Central Otago estate’s winemaker, Blair Walter—for the Neudorf role.Felton Road is one of New Zealand’s Family of Twelve, a group of estates that banded together in a successful collaborative marketing drive. Other members of this group were: Ata Rangi (Martinborough), Craggy Range (Hawke’s Bay), Fromm Winery (Marlborough), Kumeu River (Auckland), Lawson’s Dry Hills (Marlborough), Nautilus Estate (Marlborough), Palliser Estate (Martinborough), Pegasus Bay (Waipara), The Millton Vineyard (Gisborne; which called time in 2025) and Villa Maria (Auckland). Villa Maria’s influential founder, Sir George Fistonich, is mentioned by name—you can find out more about him by listening to my interview with Steve Smith MW on episode 16 of the podcast.Judy was named a 2025 New Zealand Winegrowers Fellow for services to wine marketing, and she shares plenty of straightforward wisdom on this subject. Her succinct guide to good trade relationships prompted me to quote a couple of previous podcast guests whose interviews, naturally, I recommend. The first is CellarHand founder Patrick Walsh (episode 4), and the second is wine writer Max Allen (episode 24).From the Finns’ pre-Neudorf days, Judy mentions Tim’s Master’s in Animal Behaviour, which inadvertently led to a fateful friendship with German-born soil scientist Rainer Eschenbruch at the Ruakura Research Centre in Hamilton. Judy, meanwhile, reflects on her stint at the Waikato Times. I discussed this area of New Zealand with PJ Charteris in episode 8. Judy worked on the paper with Michael King, the renowned historian on Māori culture (Māoritanga). Judy studied Te Reo (Māori language) with tribal leader Sir Robert Mahuta. A couple of terms that come up are pākehā, meaning a New Zealander of European descent, and whānau (family group).And a brief note on the topical background to this interview. Judy and I spoke during the week of the World Economic Forum in Davos, amid all manner of Trumpian nastiness. This was after Renée Nicole Good was fatally shot by ICE agents in Minneapolis, and shortly before the killing of Alex Pretti. In between those two despicable acts, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a stirring speech at Davos in which he alluded to Václav Havel’s The Power of the Powerless essay. In it, Havel illustrates the risk of perpetuating life within a lie with the example of a greengrocer who places a sign reading “Workers of the world, unite!” in the window—an act of submission that others meekly follow. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

The smiling faces of Marcus Satchell and Lisa Sartori are synonymous with Gippsland food and wine. Anyone who’s taken off from Melbourne Airport in recent years will have seen them beaming down from a billboard above the freeway. Their flagbearer status has been earned from a buzzing cellar door championing local produce and from the array of award-winning wines that Marcus—or Satchy, as everyone knows him—has produced from an unprecedented array of fruit sources across this scattered region.For Marcus, there is both a general and specific side to Dirty Three. In the former camp, you have the unstinting determination to push Gippsland forward, driven by the excellence of its food, drink and tourism offerings. He also sees that the cellar door experience is not just about wine, but an overriding sense of good hospitality at which Lisa is innately gifted. Community enjoyment, fuelled by music, is vital.And on the specific side, Satchy has taken his unique insight on Gippsland grapes, gleaned over years as an itinerant and contract winemaker, and turned it into wines that shine a light on the commonalities and singularities of the region’s sites, with Pinot Noir the key medium.Marcus was born in Wonthaggi, about 130km southeast of Melbourne, and these days the Dirty Three cellar door is about 13km east of there. Don’t worry if you’re unfamiliar with Gippsland geography—most people are—so we cover it at length in the interview.Marcus refers to his early musical days, including enrolling at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA). His band that burst onto the scene is Cranky; check out this clip. Contemporaries he references include Skunkhour, Regurgitator and TISM, while The Cat Empire is jazz-funk outfit that people have cited as a latter-day pseudo-progression of Cranky’s genre-defying music.Marcus’s early years in winemaking took place in the Yarra Valley, where he mentions several peers and mentors. Former AFL player Rob ‘Sticks’ Dolan is one of those. Dolan was working at the corporate-owned Yarra Ridge winery at the time. In those days, Satchy worked with the likes of Paul Bridgeman (now marking wine at Levantine Hill while playing in the Yarra Valley-based Yeastie Boys band), Caroline Mooney (Bird on a Wire), Travis Bush (Punt Road), Tom Belford (Bobar), Rob Hall (Rob Hall Wines) and the late Adam Marks of Bress. Dave Bicknell of Oakridge and Applecross, and previous podcast guests Steve Flamsteed (Decades) and Tim Shand (Voyager), are also mentioned. Dominique Portet is the France-born founder of the eponymous estate in Coldstream, where Marcus scored his first gig as winemaker.Providing a link between the Yarra and Gippsland are Denise and Graeme Miller, who sold their vineyard to De Bortoli to kickstart that family’s momentous foray in the Valley. (Steve Webber, like Rob Dolan, is referenced as a prodigious fosterer of young talent, which is also acknowledged in this interview with Sarah Fagan.) Then there are Cam Mackenzie and Stuart Gregor, original partners in Dirty Three, who exited to focus on their phenomenal success with the Yarra Valley-based gin brand Four Pillars.A couple of other Gippsland names to know are Rick Lacey, founder of the successful Purple Hen label on Phillip Island, and Phillip Jones of Bass Phillip Estate, whose dogged pursuit of Burgundian Pinot put Gippsland on the map for many wine-lovers.Talking about the idea for Lisa and Marcus’s cellar door, Jo Marsh’s name crops up. Jo and her partner, Glenn James, grow the Billy Button wines in and around Victoria’s Alpine Valleys. California’s Randall Grahm, founder of Bonny Doon, is also mentioned.As for the name, Dirty Three, we discuss a few allusions. There are the three original partners, the love of music giving a nod to the music of Warren Ellis, Mick Turner and Jim White, and the idea of showcasing Pinot Noir from three distinct patches of dirt. The dirt has shifted a bit—Gippsland is a tricky place to grow grapes and secure fruit, as you’ll hear—but Satchy and Lisa continue to raise beautiful, articulate, layered wines from their beloved dirts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

The Vininspo! podcast is still on holiday. Here instead is a spoken version of a relatively recent story you might have missed. (If you’d prefer, you can read it here.)This is the story of Kerri Thompson, whose highly acclaimed Wines by KT label is a fitting tribute to her love of the Clare Valley.All the context is in the story. As a Riesling tragic, I had long been a fan of KT’s work—and of the Clare Valley, whose Riesling trail I could happily cycle every day for the rest of my life, so long as its fragrant, floral, lemon-lime liquid refreshment flowed freely. Her prowess extends far beyond Riesling, too—and that, too, fits with Clare’s potential to grow a range of vine varieties well. You can also find some details notes on KT’s wines in a piece I wrote called How Come Everyone Glazes KT?I’m sure you’ll find plenty to cherish about Kerri Thompson in this piece.In the meantime, thanks for tuning in to Vininspo!—if you haven’t already, please subscribe to my Substack to have the first podcast episode of 2026 land in your inbox on Friday, 16th January. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

The Vininspo! podcast is on holiday. Here instead is a spoken version of a relatively recent story you might have missed.This is the story of Sarah Fagan, chief winemaker at TarraWarra in the Yarra Valley.All the context is in the story (which you can read here if you’d prefer). Speaking of context, the story came about because I was invited to TarraWarra in October 2024 to taste its latest releases and also to taste from barrel the various components that would go on to make the ’24 wines—the first TarraWarra wines authored by Sarah. I wanted to make the trip not for the wines but for Sarah—the wines from this new era were in desperate need of context.Additional motivation comes from the fact that Sarah Fagan appears to be an interesting archetype. Her move to TarraWarra followed 20 years of making wine for the vast De Bortoli wine business. Millions of hectolitres of wine pumped out by countless minions over a couple of decades are going to efface individual details. So, who is that person behind it all?I wanted to find out.A sort of amusing aside: I judged at Melbourne Royal Wine Show in 2021, with Covid restrictions in place, i.e. weird conditions. The first person I bumped into in the lobby on the way to the judging venue on day one was Sarah Fagan and… I didn’t really know who she was. Turned out she was my panel chair that day and, of course, everyone knew her.So, again, a good reason for you to get up to speed.In the meantime, thanks for tuning in to Vininspo!—I look forward to bringing you more podcast episodes when I return from a short break. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

I first heard Ginny Willcock speak about wine in Adelaide back in 2013 when I attended Savour Australia as a freelance journalist for Business Insider. This event courted wine-buyers, writers and opinion-shapers from across the globe in an attempt to reset the image of Australian wine. On an afternoon where delegates were assigned breakout sessions, I ended up in a fancy Cabernet Sauvignon tasting fronted by Gin, with Sue Hodder of Wynns also on the panel. Sue was great value, too, but Gin blew me over like a gust of fresh air. We were there, after all, because the world’s affection for Aussie wine had dimmed, and its essential, endearing Aussieness had retreated into itself. When Ginny spoke, that essential, endearing Aussieness came rollicking back like a wave rolling in from the Indian Ocean.Vininspo! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.The fact that we were discussing Cabernet—that most refined and distinguished of noble red grapes—with unfettered, infectious enthusiasm rather than the pomp and guff ordinarily de rigueur in these soulless dissections, heightened the effect. And Gin’s wines are immaculate. Like her, they are also brimming with energy, personality and emotion.Gin is chief winemaker at Vasse Felix, where she began working back in 2006. During that time, she’s won countless awards, including being crowned 2026 Winemaker of the Year by Halliday Wine Companion. Vasse Felix was the first estate to be planted in Margaret River, back in 1967, by Dr Tom Cullity. The Holmes à Court family now owns it, and Gin speaks warmly about her partnership with Vasse Felix owner and chief executive Paul Holmes à Court. Bart Molony, chief viticulturist and 2025 Halliday Wine Companion Viticulturist of the Year, has been at Gin’s side throughout her tenure. Heytesbury is the name of Vasse Felix’s pinnacle Chardonnay, while the Tom Cullity bottling, initially aired as an idea before Cullity’s death in 2008, became the estate’s top Cabernet cuvée from the oldest vines from the 2013 vintage. Idée Fixe is the name of this group’s traditional-method sparkling wine project.Going back in time, Ginny mentions the family farm in Bindoon, which is slightly inland, some 75km north of Perth. She also mentions her sister, Cath Willcock, a very dear friend of Vininspo! and founder of wine distributor IMBIBO. From her study days, she gives a nod to Pat Iland, a former lecturer in chemistry and viticulture at Roseworthy Agricultural College. Her friendship with Stephen Pannell, my guest on episode 30 of the podcast, has also been pivotal. Peter Leske’s name is dropped in reference to the Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI), and the late Bryce Rankine, author of the influential work Making Good Wine, is also mentioned. Capel Vale, where she got work experience, is in WA’s Geographe region.In Margaret River phase one, the following characters appear: Mark Messenger, who was a long-serving winemaker at Juniper Estate; Clive Otto, formerly of Vasse Felix and Fraser Gallop; Conor Lagan, then of Xanadu; Bill Ullinger of Redgate Wines; and Gin’s husband Mike Gadd, then of Cullen in Wilyabrup.Kym Milne MW—I hope a future podcast guest—set Gin up with the ill-fated vintage in Albania and subsequent Italian jobs in Trento (Trentino-Alto Adige), Trapani (Sicily) and at Farnese in Abruzzo. Other jobs followed at Cloudy Bay (Marlborough, NZ), Cape Mentelle, and Evans & Tate (Margaret River), and at the contract winemaking facility run by Mike Calneggia.In present-day Margaret River, the following get a shout-out: Tim Shand (Voyager, episode 15), Julian Langworthy (Nocturne/Deep Woods, episode 28), Jo Perry (Dormilona), Dylan Arvidson (LS Merchants) and Jacopo ‘Japo’ Dalli Cani (McHenry Hohnen). Vanessa Carson (Lenton Brae) was the friend who accompanied Ginny to Spain, where the latter’s epiphany occurred at the Roda winery in Rioja.On a slightly different note, Gin talks about the Gin Gin clone of Chardonnay, for which Margaret River is known. It is particular to Margaret River, and appears to have an aroma and structure profile of its own, accentuated perhaps by the ripening conditions (although these vary considerably across the region) and by its susceptibility to millerandage (aka ‘hen and chicken’), whereby bunches have an excessively high proportion of small, seedless berries in among their plump, juicy, seeded berries. And finally, Gin’s joke about being the monks of Margaret River is an allusion to the monks of Burgundy, who observed the quality of grapes grown in different plots that subsequently became classified as, in ascending order, village, premier cru and grand cru. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

You'll find extensive show notes below to help clarify any details in this wide-ranging conversation. In the meantime, I'd love to count on your ongoing support to make this and other Vininspo! work possible. Here is where you can follow and share what I do.Substack: edmerrison.substack.comInstagram: @vininspo.wineYouTube: @vininspowineWebsite: www.vininspo.wineThe epithet “worthy” used to get bandied around newsrooms to describe stories about meritorious subjects that were too… worthy to be truly interesting. Optimistic, spiritual, caring and inclusive to a fault, Sue Bell could almost sound a bit worthy if it weren’t for her soulful wines, mischievous snigger and sheer feel-good factor.Sue is the person behind the Coonawarra-based Bellwether label, which she established with business partner Andrew Rennie in 2008. She became sole owner in mid-2025, describing herself at the time as “excited and terrified”. We talk about that in our conversation, as well as the community that has developed around the Bellwether’s HQ, the historic Glenroy Shearing Shed. Among other accolades, Sue was named Australian Society of Viticulture and Oenology Winemaker of the Year in 2014. You can taste her wines at the shed, which also offers camping and glamping options and hosts various events.   I’m pleased Sue shared her wisdom on a fair bit of unsung geography, covering a fair bit of ground—literally—around the South Australia/Victoria border. I hope that listeners might look out for these regions on wine labels and maybe even pay them a visit. These include Coonawarra itself, as well as Mount Gambier, Mount Benson, Padthaway and Wrattonbully. The Kanawinka Fault is the geological fault line that stretches from Portland in Victoria to Naracoorte in South Australia, where you’ll find the World Heritage-listed caves. The Bonney Upwelling is the oceanic phenomenon that has a crucial influence on local grape-growing conditions.As so often when mapping the trajectory of my guests, a galaxy of Aussie wine stars has plotted Sue’s path to where she is today. From McLaren Vale, she mentions early experience at Noon, Woodstock and Primo Estate, with Primo’s Joseph Grilli offering some particularly valuable advice.From her days at Southcorp, which has morphed into Treasury Wine Estates. She worked under Wayne Falkenberg at the Karadoc winery in Mildura (Corrina Wright in episode 28 and more so PJ Charteris in episode 8, talk about formative experiences here), Rouge Homme in Coonawarra, Seppelt Great Western (where she worked with great friend Kate Goodman) and Magill Estate (Penfolds). The late Neville Falkenberg was her boss on the Penfolds white team, where she worked alongside PJ Charteris, Steve Chapman, and others. From this period, she also mentions a viticulture placement in Eden Valley with Allen Jenkins, well known for his work at Wynns, and Suzi Hilder, now of Smallfry in the Barossa.Sue’s cohort at Hardys has also come up a lot in this show. Many have praised Peter Dawson’s influence, while other members of the gang include past podcast guests Stephen Pannell (S.C. Pannell), Rob Mann (Corymbia), Anna Flowerday (Te Whare Ra) as well as Kerri Thompson (Wines by KT, Clare Valley), Fran Austin (Delamere, Tasmania), Alex McKay (Collector, Canberra District), Ed Carr (House of Arras) and communications specialist Bec Hopkins. Tom Newton gets a nice mention; he was with the Hardys group for 36 years, finishing up as Accolade’s Group White Winemaker in 2018. Eileen Hardy is the prestige label of the Hardys portfolio (now owned by Vinarchy), while Bay of Fires is a Tasmanian brand in the same group. B*****d Hill, meanwhile, is a Yarra Valley vineyard now owned by Jackson Family Wines, whose Giant Steps brand is producing single-site wines from here.Sue speaks of the trip she took as dux of the Len Evans Tutorial after she left Hardys. LET is the annual scholarship experience held in the Hunter Valley, NSW, since 2001 and dubbed “the best wine school on earth”. That same year, she had a fateful conversation with Mike Brajkovich MW of Kumeu River in New Zealand. Having established Bellwether, Sue credits the help of the Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI) as an invaluable source of information and support for the nation’s producers.Other names that crop up are Ashley Ratcliff of Ricca Terra in the Riverland and the Chalmers family in Mildura (hear more about the latter in this episode). Meanwhile, Sue mentions Louise Hemsley-Smith (Battle of Bosworth), Louisa Rose (Yalumba) and Rebecca Wilson (Bremerton) in the segment on Sips in the Sticks. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

It’s weird and fitting that the first serious comment on a wine blog I wrote came from Stephen Pannell. The lack of preceding remarks speaks volumes about the anonymity in which I was operating; the fact that the most decorated winemaker of his generation deigned to pipe up says a lot about how much he cares.If you enjoy original work & want to keep this kind of thing alive, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber to Vininspo!I was in a hotel room in Milan when Steve’s message popped up in response to a Nebbiolo post I’d written that featured a wine of his—a 2010 Nebbiolo. He said something modest and grateful and told me I needed to see Massolino in Serralunga d’Alba while I was in that part of the world. As it happened, I’d already lined up an appointment for the next day; it was a happy coincidence that made me love Nebbiolo that little bit more.I have since had the pleasure of interviewing Steve several times, representing his wines and following his various, exceptionally ambitious projects very closely. During that time, he has won Australia’s most prestigious wine award, the Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy, for the second time, been named Australian Winemaker of the Year, established a cellar door in McLaren Vale and bought four vineyards that individually specialise in Mediterranean varieties, Nebbiolo, Grenache and warm-climate Shiraz. He is a universally recognised flag-bearer for either the emergence or renaissance of each of those categories in Australia, with a reputation that extends far beyond these borders.Thanks to Steve’s patience and openness, we cover all of this, and his extraordinary trajectory, in our conversation. Protero is his sole vineyard outside McLaren Vale. This Adelaide Hills site has Nebbiolo as the headline act alongside other northern Italian varieties. The S.C. Pannell cellar door and Portuguese, Iberian and southern Italian varieties are on Oliver’s Road. The Shiraz, including the wine that won the 2026 Halliday Wine Companion Best Shiraz of the Year, grows on his Koomilya Vineyard. Little Branch—an anglicised version of Lindquist, the maiden name of Stephen’s wife, Fiona—is his 100-year-old Grenache vineyard.Fiona is given a fitting tribute here, as is Steve’s general manager, Tom Grant. His distributor, Patrick Walsh, is mentioned, too (he’s the other Depeche Mode fan alluded to). Patrick is the founder of CellarHand, for which I work, and was himself interviewed for episode four. A mutual Barolo connection exists here. G.D. Vajra is the winery that Steve worked for, and he speaks at length of his relationship with its owners, Aldo and Milena Vaira. CellarHand and S.C. Pannell import these wines into Australia. Another pseudo-Italian connection is David Gleave MW, who is in fact the Canada-born, UK-resident founder of Liberty Wines. David also established Willunga 100, a McLaren Vale Grenache specialist featured here. David Ridge is an Australian importer of Italian wine. Paolo de Marchi, meanwhile, is synonymous with the great Chianti Classico estate. Isole e Olena.Steve is the son of Bill and Sandra Pannell, who founded Moss Wood in Margaret River and went on to establish Picardy in Pemberton, Western Australia. His early French connections include the late Burgundy broker Becky Wasserman-Hone, Dominique Lafon of Domaine des Comtes Lafon in Meursault, Bertie Eden of Château Maris in the Languedoc, Jacques and François Lurton, and the late Gérard Potel, then of Domaine de la Pousse d’Or in Volnay. Steve also pays tribute to his dear friend Nicolas Potel, founder of Domaine de Bellene, who died in June this year.A whole host of Australian characters come up in this conversation. Steve first met Petaluma founder Brian Croser when he was a kid in WA; likewise, the late Len Evans, whose famous tutorial (“the greatest wine school on earth”) is also discussed. Huon Hooke is the wine writer he worked alongside in Sydney, and Jim Whittle, who died in 2014, was their larger-than-life Sydney retail manager.Among Steve’s cohort at Roseworthy Agricultural College were Virginia Willcock of Vasse Felix, Peter Gago of Penfolds (an interesting perspective on young Gago here), Reid Bosward, Wendy Stuckey and Nick Haselgrove. Hardys was another incredibly formative experience for Steve—this is where he won his first Jimmy Watson for the 1995 Eileen Hardy Shiraz. Anna Flowerday, my guest on episode 13, spoke about this golden age of Hardys talent overseen by Tim James and Peter Dawson, and including the likes of Larry Cherubino, Rob Mann (Corymbia) and Kerri Thompson (Wines by KT).Other names mentioned in passing include: Wendouree, the legendary Clare Valley estate whose character, as expressed by custodians Tony and Lita Brady, has so influenced Steve; Adelaide Hills wine-grower Tim Knappstein (who enjoys a cameo here and here); Warren Randall, owner of Seppeltsfield in the Barossa; English-born, South Australia-based wine writer Tim White; Simon Benjamin, co-founder of Iberia-inspired Bar Lourinhã in Melbourne; and Mark Lloyd, who has long been a frontrunner with alternative varieties with his beautiful family estate, Coriole, in McLaren Vale. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

While Italian footballers are known for their histrionics, Trembath & Taylor has scored goals and won fans while sparing us the theatrics. Arguably Australia’s foremost importer of Italy’s wines plays the game with no shortage of passion, but has passed it on to a legion of converts in a refreshingly low-key manner.Vininspo! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.The rock-star billing of Brunello, Barolo, Barbaresco et al makes it hard to believe that the wines of Italy were playing to tiny crowds 30 years ago, when Trembath & Taylor started out. Matt and I cover their trajectory and modern trends extensively in this conversation. Inevitably, we cover several regions, grapes and styles. Some may be new to you; that’s part of the point. One aim of my Substack is to be a one-stop shop for fostering curiosity and answering it… but I haven’t really got started with the educational materials. Still, Matt fleshes out many of the points; where you’re left wondering about anything, please leave a question in the comments.I will try to pick out a few key mentions to help you navigate further reading. Matt mentions a host of local personalities when talking about this formative experience at The George Hotel in the Melbourne seaside suburb of St Kilda. These include the late restaurateur Donlevy Fitzpatrick, who created The Melbourne Wine Room with Maurice Terzini, Karen Martini, and Michael Sapountsis—all of whom became prominent figures in the Australian dining scene. Other members of the cast include winemakers Barney Flanders (check out his excellent Garagiste label) and David Chapman (ditto for Allies), as well as wine writer Marcus Ellis.A few acronyms crop up when we discuss education. A few acronyms often appear in discussions about Italian wine classification. DOC stands for Denominazione di Origine Controllata (Controlled Denomination of Origin), DOCG for Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita, and IGP for Indicazione Geografica Protetta (Protected Geographical Indication; previously known as IGT, where the T stands for Tipica). IGP wines generally allow greater freedom in the choice of grape varieties, sourcing, and methods of harvesting, vinification, and maturation. Stricter regulations govern DOC and DOCG wines, and while DOCG is often assumed to indicate higher quality, this isn’t the case—it all depends on the specific DOC or DOCG, as each sets and enforces its own rules.Matt refers to WSET (the Wine & Spirit Education Trust), the London-based organisation for which I am an accredited educator, and which has a significant global presence through its structured courses, ranging from Level 1 to 4. I have interviewed a couple of other educators—Andrea Pritzker and Meg Brodtmann—both of whom happen to be MWs, and the Master of Wine program also comes up in our conversation. Kate McIntyre MW is the person for whom he filled in at Trembath & Taylor. Kate’s family winery is Moorooduc Estate on the Mornington Peninsula.Todd Slater and Iona Baker are the sales staff members mentioned. Both previously worked in restaurants with serious Italian credentials, the former with Stefano Manfredi in Sydney and the latter with Guy Grossi in Melbourne.Quite a few producers are namechecked. These include Hofstätter in Alto Adige and Brancaia in Tuscany, which produced the first two Italian wines Matt tasted: Pinot Nero and the Il Blu Merlot blend, respectively. Other names include Ottin (Valle d’Aosta), Marcarini, Poderi Colla, Chiara Boschis, Conterno Fantino (Piemonte), Pieropan, Speri (Veneto), Damiano Ciolli (Lazio), Costanti, Fuligni and Poggerino (Tuscany).Last, here are a few of those more obscure grape varieties to track down: Prié (Aosta), Timorasso and Cortese (Piemonte), Rossese di Dolceacqua (Liguria), Ciliegiolo (Tuscany), Cesanese (Lazio), Carricante, Grillo, Catarratto, Frappato, Nerello Mascalese (Sicily). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

The first time I met Corrina Wright, she was done up in Viking garb and grinning like a Cheshire cat. It was Melbourne’s inaugural Game of Rhônes tasting, a celebration of all things Grenache, Shiraz et al, and one of those too-rare wine events where a cheerful disposition is de rigueur. But even Corrina’s resting b***h face is probably a big, warm smile. Injustice and inanity are enough to wipe it off, but only for as long as it takes for her to speak up, pitch in and set it straight.Vininspo! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Corrina’s ancestors, William and Elizabeth Oliver, left Scotland for McLaren Vale in late 1839 and established two properties that remain in family hands. Corrina Wright (née Rayment) is a member of the sixth generation to work the land here, and the first to make wine under the family label, Oliver’s Taranga. It’s a full family affair, with several relatives involved in the business, including her cousin Brioni Oliver. Together, they produce a range of first-rate wines, from McLaren Vale’s red staples of Shiraz and Grenache to an array of modern iterations of alternative varieties that have found such a happy home in this beautiful area’s warm Mediterranean climate.One of those grapes is the Campanian native white, Fiano, and we spoke in the week preceding Australia’s first-ever Fiano Day. Corrina was the spearhead for this informal celebration of an increasingly popular vine variety.As you listen to the interview, you’ll learn not to be surprised to see Corrina leading from the front. We talk about the many community roles she takes on. She is the president of the Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show (AAVWS) committee, and regular listeners will have heard me discuss this movement with the likes of Jeff Porter, Kim Chalmers and Max Allen. She is also on the action board of Australian Women in Wine. We discuss this organisation and its own awards, an initiative begun by Jane Thomson OAM, founder of The Fabulous Ladies’ Wine Society.Corrina has also served on the boards of the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia, McLaren Vale Grape, Wine & Tourism Association and the Australian Society of Viticulture & Oenology. In other acroynym news, she was ASVO Winemaker of the Year in 2019, and still sits on the board of the Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI), which runs the Advanced Wine Assessment Course (Awac). We discuss Awac in the section about training your palate.Corrina talks about studying at Roseworthy, an institution that has come up in many of these podcasts—not least with PJ Charteris, who also gives further insight into Southcorp, Penfolds and Karadoc. Among Corrina’s cohort were the likes of Pete Fraser (Yangarra), Andy Coppard (Lino Ramble), Tony and Briony Hoare (Beach Road Wines), Ben Glaetzer (Glaetzer Wines) and Sue Bell (Bellwether). She also studied at UC Davis in the US, where she came into the orbit of chemical engineer Roger Boulton, sensory scientist Ann Noble, and Nick Dokoozlian of Californian wine giant Gallo. Another American mentioned is the hugely influential critic, Robert Parker, founder of The Wine Advocate.Somewhat more leftfield is the superb story of Corrina’s Ihana wine collaboration with Finnish F1 driver Valtteri Bottas. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Some people don’t even believe there’s a vineyard there, let alone the site that spawned a second coming for one of the country’s most hallowed cool-climate regions.Reg Egan was working as a lawyer when he decided to plant a vineyard in the Yarra Valley in 1963. The site he chose was not far from his Melbourne practice—so close, in fact, that he was sure he’d have to sell it in the medium term. He had a contingency for that, which didn’t work out as he’d expected. That’s a fascinating anecdote covered in this interview with his younger daughter, Maryann.By the mid-1980s, Reg had given up the law and was working on the vineyard full-time. The mélange of varieties he’d started with eventually whittled itself down to a range of four wines, named for his granddaughters: Amelia (Chardonnay), Lily (Pinot Noir), Amelia (Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot) and Hannah (Cabernet Franc/Merlot).Those are the daughters of his daughters, Liz and Maryann Egan. Liz went on to become a celebrated chef and restaurateur, while Maryann studied wine, working patchily among the vines in her early years before assuming the helm at Wantirna Estate over the past couple of decades.We touch on other icons of the Yarra Valley here. Maryann mentions being good friends with Sandra de Pury, the fourth-generation winemaker at Yeringberg. This storied estate was founded in 1863 and underwent a significant hiatus during the Yarra’s post-Great War dormant period. Maryann also mentions Sam Middleton, third-generation vigneron at 1971-founded Mount Mary.Sam’s grandfather, Dr John Middleton, and his wife, Marli, were among a legendary quartet of friends, along with the Egans, Ian and June Marks of Gembrook Hill and Dr Peter and Margaret McMahon. You can read more about this foursome here. Suffice to say, each of them has had a tremendous impact on notions of the quality potential and terroir stamp of Australian wines.Another doctor features in this piece: Bailey Carrodus. Reg and Bailey planted the vineyard that would become Yarra Yering—another top-flight Australian producer. How that panned out is quite some story, but not widely known.When it comes to Maryann’s own career, she worked a harvest at Tyrrell’s, one of the greats of the Hunter Valley, NSW, and there met Wayne Donaldson. The latter was the first winemaker at Domaine Chandon, the Yarra Valley bubbly outpost of LVMH, owner of Champagne house Moët et Chandon. During her six-year stint at Chandon, Maryann’s boss was influential Aussie sparkling-wine pioneer Tony Jordan, who passed away in 2019.Vininspo! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.After leaving Chandon to have her two children, Maryann scored a presenting role on the television show Wine Lovers’ Guide to Australia alongside co-hosts Grant Van Every and Pria Viswalingam. Australian residents can still stream both series of the programme, which first aired in 1999, on SBS on Demand.Maryann speaks with fondness of visiting winemakers on her travels, and credits Melbourne fine-wine merchant Prince Wine Store and CellarHand, Wantirna Estate’s Australian distributor (for whom I work), with setting up some of those connections. The trio of wonderful women we name-check are Virginie Taupenot of Domaine Taupenot-Merme in Morey-Saint-Denis, Elsa Matrot in Meursault (both in Burgundy’s Côte d’Or) and Claudia Cigliuti of Barbaresco producer Cigliuti. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Julian Langworthy first struck me as the embodiment of happy-go-luckiness. A healthy irreverence, ready quip and loud laugh were standard issue, and he seemed to be breaking and losing more trophies than anyone else was winning.I was the Victorian chair of Wine Communicators of Australia when Julian’s 2014 Deep Woods Estate Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon won the Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy at the Melbourne Royal Wine Awards. No wonder he looked like the cat that got the cream at the awards lunch we organised; Australia’s most prestigious wine trophy came with a $20,000 cheque to do whatever he liked to “further his wine education”. We talk about that on the podcast.Around the same time, Julian brought his own Nocturne wines to us at CellarHand, in the hope that we would agree to be the brand’s first Australian distributor. We said yes. The wines—a single-vineyard Margaret River Chardonnay, Cabernet and rosé back then (the rosé has since migrated to the subregional range)—were excellent, and there was no chance that you’d let this combination of charisma, ambition, ebullience and prowess slip through your fingers.Julian’s day job is chief winemaker and general manager of Deep Woods Estate, which is the linchpin of the Fogarty Wine Group (FWG). We discuss Deep Woods at length, from his unorthodox hiring by owner Peter Fogartry to the operations of the group, which owns vineyards and brands across four Australian states, including Dalwhinnie in Victoria, Lowestoft in Tasmania and Lake’s Folly in NSW.We talk a bit about trophies, and I suggest we shouldn’t be blasé about the wins. Nor am I exaggerating this aspect of Julian’s career. Nocturne itself has picked up its fair share of silverware, while Jules has been crowned Halliday Wine Companion Winemaker of the Year and picked up the Len Evans Trophy, Stodart Trophy, Max Schubert Trophy and Decanter World’s Best Cabernet. Deep Woods has won more than 60 trophies and 200 gold medals on his watch—and FWG more broadly is a constant presence on the podium under his overall guidance.Jeff Burch of Howard Park Wines is also mentioned in connection with Julian’s move to Deep Woods in his native Margaret River. That same hallowed region is home to several world-famous producers. Julian refers to the “founding families”, an informal term covering the likes of Cullen, Leeuwin Estate, Cape Mentelle, Vasse Felix and Moss Wood. The so-called “cool kids” mentioned as having managed to join that first rank include Stella Bella and Xanadu.From Adelaide University days, Julian mentions erstwhile bottleshop colleague Sophie Otton, now a Sydney-based bar owner, sommelier, wine judge and writer. His lecturers included sensory evaluation specialist Patrick Iland, viticulture guru Peter Dry and Clare Valley icon Jeffrey Grosset, one of Australia’s foremost Riesling growers. Among Julian’s winemaking student cohort were Peter Dillon of Handpicked (married to winemaker Imogen Dillon of Ten Minutes by Tractor on the Mornington Peninsula), Peter Dredge of Dr Edge in Tasmania, former Bleasdale winemaker and Jimmy Watson winner Paul Hotker, Anna Pooley of Pooley Wines and Bubb + Pooley in Tasmania, and Dan Stocker of Heretic Wines in Margaret River.It was at Wolf Blass that Julian first took telling steps in a winery role (and where Chassagne-Montrachet-based white Burgundy legend Pierre-Yves Colin was somewhat incongruously hanging around!). The Barossa winery was part of Beringer Blass and has now been subsumed into Treasure Wine Estates. Jules moved to Coonawarra within that same group, working at Jamiesons Run and then at Wynns Coonawarra Estate. The community members namechecked there include Emma Bowen of Bowen Estate, Dan Redman of Redman Wines and Dru Reschke of Koonara Wines. Last, but certainly not least, are a couple of hugely influential mentors at Wynns. One is Greg Tilbrook, the other the much-admired Sue Hodder, who herself has won just about every accolade as senior winemaker for this bastion of Australian Cabernet. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

I vividly recall my first meeting with Kathleen Quealy. I had tasted and delighted in her Pobblebonk field blend of Friulano, Riesling and Pinot Gris, and followed it up with the Rageous red, an unlikely marriage of Sangiovese, Shiraz and Pinot Noir. Among the Mornington Peninsula’s calm little sea of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, these outlandishly named, labelled and assembled interlopers smacked of anarchy.Rocking up at Balnarring Vineyard felt like landing in the outskirts of an Irish country town where time stands still. A charmingly ramshackle, take-us-as-you-find-us backyard of ambling hens, drying washing, bicycles and bric-a-brac announced, fittingly, the home of the Quealy-McCarthy clan.That wasn’t your average interview. Unfiltered, unguarded candour and randomness spilt out, and I learned and laughed a lot. We’ve spoken a lot in the intervening years, but this episode 25 of Vininspo! podcast still felt like the first time.Max Loder was the viticultural lecturer and Pinot Gris advocate who influenced Kathleen during her time at what is now the Charles Sturt University campus in Wagga Wagga, NSW. Her husband, Kevin McCarthy, did his winemaking studies at Roseworthy Agricultural College (discussed at length here). T’Gallant is the name of the winery they founded on the Mornington Peninsula in 1990. Thirteen years later, they sold it to Southcorp, which was subsumed by Fosters and morphed into Treasury Wine Estates. TWE sold T’Gallant in 2022; it has since reopened under new ownership and continues to operate from its Main Ridge home.Kathleen was dubbed the Queen of Pinot Gris by the renowned Australian wine commentator James Halliday, for whose Coldstream Hills estate Kevin McCarthy worked in the Yarra Valley in the mid-1980s. Her range has bottlings labelled Grigio and Gris; generally speaking, Australian producers use the Italian styling to denote a crisper, lighter-bodied rendition that leans towards the grape’s airier aromas and lightly fruity side. Gris, from the French for “grey”, tends to denote a riper, more richly textured rendition with more spice and earthy, exotic aromas.On the subject of Pinot Gris, I reference Max Allen’s book, Alternative Reality, which Max and I discussed on episode 24. The Chalmers family is central to that book and crops up when Kathleen and I discuss sourcing so-called alternative grape varieties. The best place to hear more about that fascinating area is by tuning into episode 17 of the podcast with Kim Chalmers.Quealy Winemakers is based at the organic-certified Balnarring Vineyard on the Mornington Peninsula. Its range of wines takes in Pinot Noir and Chardonnay—the region’s most celebrated grapes—and much more besides. The diverse and distinctive label artwork by celebrated designer Ken Cato is in keeping with this estate’s singularity.Kathleen is justly proud of the progress her son, Tom McCarthy, has made. Tom’s range of skin-contact wines is called Turbul. It began over a decade ago with a Friulano that spent an extended period of time in contact with its skins to become a so-called orange or amber wine. As mentioned, this range has grown to four wines, with Malvasia, Ribolla Gialla and Moscato Giallo entering the fold. They are proper, considered, fully realised wines of intent; I urge you to watch this video and seek them out. While these wines take their cue from traditions around the border of Slovenia and northeast Italy, Tom has also followed in footsteps closer to home; in 2008, Kevin McCarthy’s T’Gallant Claudius gave Australia its first fully committed amber wine from Chardonnay, Traminer and Moscato Giallo. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Not starting with an end in mind has led this English-born, multi-award-winning writer to unearth profound connections down labyrinthine rabbit holes.Max Allen is too young to be deemed a national treasure, but that’s what he is. In a field where the esteem in which commentators are held is generally a measure not of perspicacity or originality but of perceived influence on potential sales, Max’s gift—and thirst—for meaningful storytelling is a rare and precious thing.Max is an award-winning journalist and author who earns a crust as drinks columnist for the Australian Financial Review (AFR), is a longtime contributor to Gourmet Traveller Magazine, and serves as the Australian correspondent for jancisrobinson.com. He has written several books about wine, some of which are discussed in our conversation and require a bit of context here.The latest of these is Alternative Reality (2023), which tells the story of the Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show (AAVWS). I quote a section from the book’s preface, written by Mildura-based chef and show founder Stefano de Pieri. For more on the show’s origins, please listen to episode 17 with Kim Chalmers.We also speak at length about Intoxicating: Ten drinks that shaped Australia (2020). Way-a-linah is the indigenous drink that kicks off the book, and pretty much the only way you’ll find out more about it is to read Intoxicating—which I suggest you do, because it’s an original and engrossing book that showcases Max’s specific talent for teasing out meaning.Other books mentioned are The Future Makers: Australian Wines for the 21st Century (2010) and Red and White: Wine Made Simple (with photographer Adrian Lander, 1997). We discuss Max’s various collaborations with Lander, including a short film on Yeringberg, which won the Louis Roederer Artistry of Wine Award in 2014.The Yeringberg estate in the Yarra Valley features prominently in the discussion. It was the subject of Max’s first story for The Age newspaper. Max has written and presented at length about Coranderrk Station and the relationship between William Barak and the de Pury family. The image he mentions was used on the front cover of the first volume of Andrew Caillard’s peerless history, The Australian Ark. You can delve into Max’s work on this here.Other literary collaborations have taken place with food writer Richard Cornish, mentioned in passing, and Gerald Diffey, proprietor of Geralds Bar in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton (and an offshoot in San Sebastián, Spain!). Gerald’s book, edited by Max, is called Beggars Belief (2021). In a sombre note, we talk about Max’s friendship with Sam Hughes, artist, musician and public face of Natural Selection Theory. More reminiscence about Rootstock’s raw energy can be found in episode 12, featuring wine writer Christina Pickard.Another story we reference is a recent AFR article titled End of the Vine. It deals with the impending loss to property development of the great Balgownie Vineyard just outside Bendigo. The site was planted in 1969 by Stuart Anderson, now in his nineties. Max’s piece, another collaboration with Adrian Lander, delves into the site’s history and symbolism. Stuart’s protégé, Michael Dhillon, is part of the story, too. Dhillon’s family estate, Bindi, grows superb, soulful, profound wines in the Macedon Ranges in Victoria. As if to confirm Max’s comment about pupil becoming master (and mentor), Dhillon this week won the Legend of Melbourne Food and Wine Award, following in the footsteps of past winner, Stuart Anderson.Instagram: @vininspo.wine This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

It makes sense when you meet Steve Lubiana that he was up to his chin in grape skins from the moment he could walk, snapping at the heels of his winemaker dad. There’s barely a moment when Steve isn’t playing with plants, fermenting stuff or pouring drinks to try with food.I first met Steve and his wife Monique, who is just as much a part of Stefano Lubiana, in Milan, of all places. They were looking at equipment at a wine industry fair that I’d been sent to cover for an Australian technical magazine. Though Stefano Lubiana is famous as Tasmania’s first certified organic and biodynamic vineyard, what’s sometimes overlooked in the best naturally run estates is the attention to detail in farming and the winery. That goes for something as prosaic as machinery (and Steve, we discover, likes machines). It makes sense, though; when you work so hard to grow the finest fruit, you don’t want anything to impede its pristine flow to the bottle.Steve and Monique’s vineyard is in Granton, near Hobart in the lower Derwent Valley. We talk a lot about the specific details of the region and the site. Tasmania has become such hot property over the last 15 years, it’s hard to imagine the scene as it was 35 years ago. Claudio Alcorso is credited with planting the island’s first commercial vineyard at the end of the 1950s at what became Moorilla (referenced in the conversation), and Andrew Pirie, who founded Pipers Brook Vineyard in the ’70s, is also mentioned. But winegrowing ventures were few and far between. It’s also worth noting that, although Tasmania is legally treated as one Geographical Indication (GI), the conditions experienced by growers ensconced in its various pockets vary widely. Despite theoretical proximity to one another, the sense of frontier growing persists. That’s farming on the margins, I suppose.Thanks for reading Vininspo! If you enjoy this piece, please share it—and consider subscribing to support the publication.The wine that Steve mentions attempting as a schoolkid was Amarone, a style that hails from the Veneto region of northeast Italy. It’s a red wine made with partially dried grapes, and you could see how the slightly sweet, rich, chocolatey, enveloping texture might appeal to a child (even if the elevated alcohol isn’t ideal). Staying in or around the Riverland, Bill Moularadellis (founder of Kingston Estate) and Andrew Peace have become big players in this warm, dry, productive area of irrigated vineyards. Other classmates at Roseworthy included Vanya Cullen (of Cullen Wines in Margaret River), Nick Butler and Matt Aldridge.Steve’s early vintages overseas were spent at Castello di Ama in Gaiole, Chianti, and with Bauchet Frères in Bisseuil, Champagne, where he stayed with Lionel Legras in the Côte des Blancs village of Chouilly. Later vintages came with Gerhard and Brigitte Pittnauer in Austria’s Burgenland (Gerhard’s importer, Steve’s distributor and my part-time employer are one and the same: CellarHand), and with Saša Radikon in Friuli. Radikon is known for the skin-contact (“orange” or “amber”) white wines that were common in the days of Steve’s forefathers and became particularly trendy in the 2010s. Their texture and the bleeding of aroma and flavour into surprisingly exotic, often savoury, zones make the best examples deeply compelling and great potential partners with food.Alex Podolinsky is the man Steve mentions as popularising the biodynamic agriculture movement in Australia. We talk a bit about the effects of biodynamic viticulture, and I aim to put together a more explicit, specific detailing of these practices through some medium soon. Watch this space. Also, you can listen to Anna Flowerday of Te Whare Ra on this subject in episode 13.Steve and Monique’s son, Marco, has his own label and is increasingly influential at Stefano Lubiana. He’s a brilliant young winemaker (winner of the 2024 Young Gun of Wine title in this Australian competition), and together this family crafts an excellent range of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir (various tiers and selections) as well as aromatic whites and fuller reds. Sparkling was where it started, though, and there are a few terms that may need some explanation. Steve mentions the cuvée being used for these wines; he is referring to the most pristine part of the juice before pressing risks any harsher textural compounds from the skins entering the fray. Tirage refers to the stage where the fermented base wine is put to bottle for a second fermentation—the one that gives it fizz and lees influence in traditional-method sparkling wine. Steve’s ideas on this are interesting. And disgorging (sometimes called degorging) is where the yeast lees are expelled from the bottle, with the bottle resealed with a cork for eventual sale, sometimes with the addition of “dosage”—a dash of balancing sweetness. (The current disgorgement of Steve and Monique’s famous Brut Reserve has a dosage of about 4.5g/L.) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

I told Gwyn Olsen when I first met her that I somehow expected her to be stern. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard that—apparently, it’s how she’d come across in photographs in the wine press. In reality, she is anything but; sharp, warm and witty, I was intrigued by how her mind worked, and how that feeds into what she creates.I first heard of Gwyn during what seems like her breakthrough year of 2014, when she was named Young Winemaker of the Year in the now-defunct Gourmet Traveller WINE magazine. She was also named dux in the Advanced Wine Assessment Course (Awac) run by the Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI).It wasn’t until a decade later that I met her at the Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show (AAVWS) in Mildura. That was November 2023, roughly a year after she had taken the job as senior winemaker at Henschke, based in South Australia’s Barossa region. A year before that, I had met her partner, Adam Walls—likewise sharp, warm and witty—at the Len Evans Tutorial in the Hunter Valley. I was a scholar that year, and he was a special guest, having been named dux in 2019. (Gwyn, too, was a scholar in 2015.) Adam, whose day job is as co-chair of the Wine Selectors Tasting Panel, inevitably gets a few honourable mentions in this conversation.Also mentioned are members of Gwyn’s student cohort in Adelaide. They include Cherie Spriggs and Brad Greatrix (now at Nyetimber in the UK, and also namechecked by Tim Shand in episode 15); Nina Stocker, winemaker at Brave Goose in Victoria; Kate Day who makes wine under the In Two Minds label in Mudgee, NSW; Andre Bondar of Bondar in McLaren Vale; Shane Holloway, who runs Delamere in Pipers Brook, Tasmania, with his wife Fran Austin; and Dave Feldheim, who makes wine under the Beautiful Isle label with his wife Cynthea in Tassie’s Tamar Valley.Among her formative wine experiences, Gwyn mentions a memorable bottle of wine consumed slowly and thoughtfully in the Languedoc, southern France. The producer is Tissot, a standard-bearer of the Jura region and a leading proponent of the unique Vin Jaune style. These yellow-hued wines from the Savagnin grape age for six-plus years “sous voile”—under a thin blanket of yeast—à la Fino sherry. The best ones show mind-bending depth and texture, with typical flavours of dried fruit, nuts and salty stuff that, yes, makes them magical with Comté cheese.Other professional gigs included Villa Maria in New Zealand, where she worked with fruit from areas as varied as Auckland, Gisborne and Hawkes Bay on the North Island to Marlborough down south. (For more on the evolution of Villa Maria, listen to episode 16 with Steve Smith MW.) The next step was McWilliams, which has undergone major change since Gwyn hit a roadblock there. Mount Pleasant was the flagship winery in the Hunter Valley, while “the mothership” was the Hanwood winery in Griffith in the Riverina (also mentioned by Tim Shand). Again, the group was operating across several areas, including in New Zealand.Pepper Tree/Briar Ridge also covered multiple regions. While Gwyn was based in the Hunter, the group also produces wines from Orange in NSW and Coonawarra and Wrattonbully in South Australia.If there weren’t already enough acronyms here, the AWRI is where you might go to learn more about YAN—yeast assimilable nitrogen—a term that crops up here. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of it, but it leads one to think about balanced vines, healthy fruit and happy ferments. (I really liked how Johannes Hasselbach of Gunderloch described this in episode 14.)And lastly, we speak at length about Henschke, which is run by Stephen and Prue Henschke with other family members, including children Johann, Justine and Andreas, carrying the torch into the sixth generation. Hill of Grace Shiraz is the pinnacle wine, and the first vines planted on the vineyard in 1860 are known as “the grandfathers”. Mount Edelstone is another venerated family vineyard; outside the Barossa, the family also owns a site in Lenswood, referenced several times by Geoff Weaver in episode 21. Gwyn mentions several different wines produced by the family; please visit the Henschke website for more information on those. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Geoff Weaver is a man from another time—a world of steam trains and horse-and-cart milkmen—yet his pristine, cool-climate white wines hold their own with the best of the modern Australian wine scene.I’ve got to know Geoff pretty well over the years, thanks to my role with his distributor, CellarHand, which gets a mention in this conversation as the importer of Mosel estate Dr Loosen.I have interviewed him a couple of times before, once about his love of his vineyard in Lenswood, which was damaged by the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires that ripped through the Adelaide Hills shortly after it was planted. The second time was after he got caught in the Cudlee Creek bushfire that struck just before Christmas in 2019. Both are referenced on the podcast.The conversation is easy to follow but contains numerous references to Geoff’s mentors and peers. Many carry a reputation that has made them household names to this day; some are still growing marvellous wines. Talking about his selection of the Lenswood site, Geoff mentions Dr John Gladstones (1932-2024), one of Australia’s most significant agronomists, often referred to as the godfather of Margaret River. In his early years, Geoff mentions three men with a huge legacy: Colin Gramp, great grandson of Orlando founder Johann Gramp (Orlando spawned the Jacob’s Creek brand); Karl Seppelt, whose grandfather established Seppeltsfield in the Barossa in 1851, thus planting the roots of the Seppelt brand; and Max Schubert, the father of Penfolds Grange. Magill Estate is the Penfolds winery in Adelaide that Geoff visited after his cricket game, and John Duval (who has his own Barossa label these days) is the chap who took the job and became one of only a handful of Grange-makers. Guenter Prass and Mark Tummel were hugely influential during Geoff’s Orlando days and beyond.Geoff’s agricultural science cohort included lifelong friend Brian Croser, who founded Petaluma and Tapanappa, as well as Robin Day (who planted Hentley Farm), Bill Hardy of the Hardys winemaking dynasty, and Pam Dunsford. In a story and era so blatantly dominated by men, Pam stands out (as always) for being the first to break through practically every layer of Australian wine’s multi-layered glass ceiling—bar those still begging to be smashed.Craneford Wines is the Barossa winery founded by Geoff’s sister and brother-in-law, Colin Forbes. When he exited that, Bryan Coombe was the viticultural researcher who initially went in on the Lenswood purchase with another brother-in-law, Bevan Roberts. The initial Adelaide Hills gang were Croser, Stephen George (Ashton Hills founder), Stephen and Prue Henschke and Tim Knappstein. The Uraidla Aristologist was the pub they’d meet in.Staying in the Hills, Geoff acknowledges the community spirit of Murdoch Hills vigneron Michael Downer’s brother, who was fighting fires for the Country Fire Service (CFS). Among his own wines, Geoff mentions Ferus, a Sauvignon Blanc vinified in barrel with indigenous yeasts and aged in neutral oak on its lees—techniques resulting in a complex, textural style that sits apart from the crisp, pungent, lighter-bodied, stainless-steel-raised stereotype.And lastly, a roll call of other names of friends. Sue Hodder is the much-admired winemaker at Wynns Coonawarra, and Geoff’s regular lunch pals include winemakers Neil Pike (ex-Pikes, now Limefinger), David Muster, Chris Proud, Rob Gibson, Andrew Wigan (ex-Peter Lehmann), Wayne Dutschke and Neil Jericho. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Rob Mann has gone a long way to get back where he started; he's a forward-thinking high-achiever with a strong sense of self who's working extremely hard to efface any notion of ego or fashion from the wines he grows.His wines are produced under the Corymbia label, which he runs with his wife, Genevieve. Gen is a gem; she shies away from the limelight but is an exceptionally intelligent, sensitive winegrower. She was a scholar at the Len Evans Tutorial the same year as me; it's always a pleasure to talk and taste wine with her. Their key wines are a Chenin Blanc and Tempranillo/Malbec blend from their vineyard in Swan Valley, about a half-hour drive from Perth, and Cabernet Sauvignon grown on their Calgardup Vineyard beside Redgate Beach, Margaret River.The name Corymbia derives from the blossom of the Marri tree, which is depicted on the labels designed by Rob's sister Emma. The flower's filaments depict the temperatures and rainfall levels of the 12 months of the vintage year. Supposedly, you'll find the Marri tree growing in soils that are good for grapes. This kind of locally rooted, holistic thinking is typical chez Mann, as is the linkage to family, err, tree.And in this regard, Rob hails from WA wine royalty. He is the great-grandson of winemaker George Mann and the grandson of Jack Mann. The latter put Swan Valley on the map, famously working 51 consecutive vintages for Houghton. This winery's flagship wine is called Jack Mann and is synonymous with the Frankland River region within the Great Southern. This is another area Rob namechecks; he has won extremely high praise for the wines he makes for the Swinney family down there.Back to the Mann clan, Rob also mentions his uncle Dorham, whose Mann winery is in the Swan Valley, just like Lamont's winery, which his aunt Corin established. Rob's late father, Tony, was a revered leg spinner who played cricket for Australia and was remembered by many as the first nightwatchman to score a century for his country. There is not enough space here to discuss cricket's arcane terminology (my suggestion is that you just get into it—like, in deep); suffice to say, the players Dennis Lillee, Rod Marsh, John Inverarity and Sir Garfield Sobers are household names to those who love the sound of leather on willow. (And I'm not explaining that, either.) Tony's nickname was Rocket, on account of his powerful arm and a pun too good to miss. Rob and Gen's Chenin and Tempranillo/Malbec grow on Rocket's Vineyard, where Rob's mum Lyn serves legendary scones to lucky visitors.A few non-family members also crack a mention. Rob speaks about his great university friend, Ben Glaetzer, who makes wines under his own name from old vines in the northern Barossa. Another formative experience was with Hardys at Stonehaven and Tintara. It's far from the first time the hotbed of Hardys talent has been mentioned on the podcast. Peter Dawson, Simon White and Stephen Pannell were all key figures in that chapter. It was late sparkling wine champion Tony Jordan who plucked Mann from there for the role at Cape Mentelle in Margaret River in 2005. That winery was founded by industry pioneer David Hohnen and his brothers Mark and Giles, while David's daughter Freya is also mentioned. Rob's role in the Napa Valley was with Newton Vineyard. Like Cape Mentelle, Newton Vineyard came under the umbrella of luxury group LVMH. Sadly, the Calistoga-based estate is permanently closed, a victim of devastating wildfires in 2020.Another sour note was Rob's experience with the Brettanomyces yeast, a unicellular fungus commonly causing microbial spoilage in wine. If it appears in your wine, it may obscure true and appealing aromas on the nose and strip the palate of its fruit, thus magnifying other elements and making the wine appear unbalanced. In more severe cases, it can give off deeply unpleasant aromas and flavours often likened to Band-Aids, sweaty horses, befouled barnyards and worse. Australian winemakers' understanding of Brett—and loathing of it—has led to a severe decrease in incidence over the past couple of decades. Meticulous cleaning and sanitation throughout the winemaking and maturation processes are key. The sparing, well-timed use of sulphur dioxide remains the friend of growers who want their wines to show their true colours without running the risk of spoilage.On a brighter note, Rob alludes to his friendship with Simon Osicka and Andrew Marks—you can find out more about this trio here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Crawford River is off the beaten track—on the road to nowhere, as Bee Thomson puts it—yet lovers of elegant, soulful, deftly balanced wines make a beeline to this second-generation label because they know precisely what it stands for.Much of the credit goes to Bee’s worldly parents, John and Catherine Thomson. John was the visionary who planted the vines in Condah in what is now southwest Victoria’s Henty region in 1975.In one of Australia’s chilliest pockets for grape-growing, there wasn’t much besides the sparkling varieties planted by Karl Seppelt in the ’60s to suggest that this would be a goer. Thomson Sr’s hunch that he had slopes on auspicious soils was confirmed by late legend of viticulture Kym Ludvigsen, but he essentially ploughed his own furrow from day dot.The estate has since carved out a first-rate reputation for Riesling so sublime that it tends to overshadow the superb Cabernet Franc, uncannily good Cabernet Sauvignon and fine Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon blend that also grow here.I’ve been fortunate to have a bit to do with the Thomsons, initially because of my love of Riesling. They are deeply connected with the global Riesling family and were a key player in the Frankland Estate-spearheaded Riesling Downunder events I had a small hand in organising in 2015 and 2018 because of my role at German wine specialist CellarHand. On the global Riesling front, one of the vintage experiences cited by Bee was with Emrich-Schönleber in Germany’s Nahe region.Bee’s husband, Cameron Kidd, earns a mention late in the interview. This fine fellow runs one of Melbourne’s best wine merchants, Rathdowne Cellars—hence her access to a smorgasbord of fine wine styles. Aside from Cam, this interview involves a lot of ruminations on family.We are told that John Thomson is fanatical about phenological ripeness, which warrants a bit of explanation. When it comes to ripe wine grapes, there are various indicators one might use. Sugar ripeness is when the sugars in the berry have reached a point (hopefully before the invigorating acids have dropped below desired levels) where they suggest ideal maturity. Flavour ripeness refers to the point where the flavours in the berry and its skins appear complete, with no underripe (bitter and vegetal) or overripe (cooked or baked) flavours. Phenological ripeness is taken by some to be even truer: when the phenols (complex molecules including the skin tannins) lose their astringency and appear to mesh and melt rather than snap and bite on the palate. Even in white wines, where tannins play a far lesser role, phenological ripeness lends a feeling of effortless resolution in the flavours and texture. Some winegrowers say there's “only one ripeness”, and ideally, there is: full flavour with sugars and acids in perfect harmony while the tannins are ripe and resolved. Well, that's the grail...Belinda also uses the term Baumé when talking about ripeness. A degree Baumé is a unit on the hydrometer scale for measuring liquid density, which can be used to indicate sugar levels in grapes and therefore give an indication of ripeness. One other technical term Bee uses is “malo”, meaning malolactic conversion. This is generally a natural and desirable process in red winemaking; it is merely the timing of it with Bee's Cabernet Sauvignon that temporarily caused a furrowed brow. You can learn more about malolactic conversion by checking out my post on episode 18 of the podcast.Skins—and the amount of time the wine spends in contact with them—are a focal point of the 2022 Crawford Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon that Belinda liked so much. At the risk of stating the obvious, the grape skins are central to most red winemaking; that’s where the colour, most of the tannin and much of the flavour come from. However, the length and timing of skin contact can vary, as will its effects, depending on grape variety and other conditions in the fruit and cellar. The grapes can have pre-fermentation maceration (also known as aqueous maceration or cold soaking), maceration during (partial or complete, depending on when the juice is drained) fermentation, and post-fermentation maceration. Like everything in winemaking, there is no ideal “time on skins”, and effects (amid evolving interplay with other compounds and their interactions) vary and shift. What Bee observes with this particular wine is that the evolution she observed, up to the point when she chose to take the wine off the skins, was exciting from a taste and tactile point of view—and it surprised her, as special wines often do.In New Zealand, Bee discusses her work with Claire and Mike Allan, the founders and erstwhile owners of Huia in Marlborough’s Wairau Valley. The Spanish grape variety she mentions is Verdejo. Rueda is its most famous home, in the vicinity of which Bee’s adventures in northern Spain took place. The enormous Spanish winery she namechecks is Campo Viejo, which was last year offloaded by drinks giant Pernod Ricard. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

This is the story of Gembrook Hill.All the context is in the story. It’s a long article, addressing perhaps my frustration with the shallowness of much so-called storytelling around wine. This is just a second-generation estate in a wine region whose modern era only dates back 60-odd years.And yet there is so much richness of consideration, camaraderie, aspiration and endeavour wrapped up in it.Please let me know your thoughts on the piece and this format of delivering it.In the meantime, thanks for tuning into Vininspo!—I look forward to bringing you most podcast episodes when I get back from a short break.Vininspo! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

This is the story of Vaughn Dell and Linda Morice, written towards the end of 2024. If you’d prefer to read it, you can do so here.All the context is in the story. It’s dear to my heart; I hope you’ll listen.Please leave a comment to share your thoughts on the piece and this format of delivery.In the meantime, thanks for tuning into Vininspo!—I look forward to bringing you most podcast episodes when I get back from a short break.Please check out edmerrison.substack.com to see the original version of this story and for other wine journalism. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

I got to know David Lloyd when he was living on his beautiful Eldridge Estate in Red Hill, a few kilometres up the road from where I live on the Mornington Peninsula. A fellow journalist on a trade magazine I’d been freelancing for suggested I contact him because I was scouting around for some vineyard experience. David was a good bloke, excellent winemaker and could do with a hand, he said.This all turned out to be true. The reason David could do with a hand, I discovered, was that his wife, Wendy, was in the advanced stages of a cancer that went on to kill her. He—they both, actually—welcomed me warmly, although I’m not sure I was a tremendous help.In this conversation, we talk at length about the quarter-century he spent as custodian of Eldridge Estate. Nat and Rosalie White, founders of Main Ridge Estate, were among David’s closest friends right the way through, and to this day, so it’s no surprise they feature prominently here. Lindsay McCall of Paringa Estate in Red Hill is also mentioned. The book I quote from is The Essence of Dreams by Andrew Caillard MW, which gives a detailed history of this Victorian wine-growing region. You can read more about Stephen Hickinbotham there. Hugely respected and fondly remembered, this winemaker was hugely influential in the peninsula’s early days and died in an air crash in the mid-’80s.The peninsula talk includes some technical stuff—unsurprising given David’s scientific leanings. The bacteria that brought them here are responsible for malolactic conversion (aka malolactic fermentation, malo or MLF). This is the process, common to pretty much all red wines and some (usually textural) whites, rosés and sparklings, where the harsher malic acid is softened and rounded out as it is converted to lactic acid. The process can occur naturally and lowers the wine’s overall acidity. That wasn’t it for microorganisms; we talked about yeasts, and Petaluma founder Brian Croser’s (now of Tapanappa) name popped up.We also talk about clones. It’s important to say that we’re not talking about some Frankenstein-like modification. Clones are just variations within a grape variety that have come about through genetic mutation. As an ancient variety with large, scattered areas planted—and with growers who have captured, selected and propagated certain mutations—Pinot Noir has a lot of them, and they have very slightly different characteristics. These will affect how the vine adapts to its surroundings and how that shows up in the wine. It’s interesting, but not something to get hung up on. But you can watch this nerdy little video on MV6, the signature clone of the Mornington Peninsula. Oh, and the Pinot clone David mentions in Santa Rita Hills, California—Musigny is one of Burgundy’s top grand-cru vineyards for reds, and Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé is a great grower.The Coonawarra crew are Doug Bowen, whose wife Joy passed away last year, and Brian "Prof" Lynn of Majella Wines. Peter Gago and his wife, Gail, also feature. Peter is chief winemaker at Penfolds and, therefore, the man behind Grange, Australia's most famous wine. I've never met him and have only witnessed a highly stylised version of him at a distance through the lens of the super-slick Penfolds PR machine. I was fascinated to hear more about him from an intimate friend. The Gamay section includes a nod to Barry Morey of Sorrenberg.Lastly, we talk about David’s friend Michael Twelftree of Two Hands in the Barossa, with whom David collaborates for the Odd Couple wines. I drank the Coal River rendition with my wife that night; it was delicious. (For more on that region, and Pinot Noir in general, listen to Steve Flamsteed, consultant to modern-era Eldridge Estate, on episode 11.) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Kim Chalmers wears many hats, not least in a family business that serves as vine nursery, grape supplier and wine estate with vineyards in two separate geographical indications (GIs). She’s also wife to a winemaker and mother of two daughters, as well as serving on numerous committees. “History is made by those who turn up,” she says—and she turns up every time, full of enthusiasm.Bruce and Jenni Chalmers are the green-fingered parents who started growing all kinds of things in New South Wales before hitting upon grapes when the wine industry was booming. The nursery has since moved from Euston, NSW, to Merbein, just outside Mildura in Victoria. This rural city at the junction of Australia's two longest rivers, the Murray and the Darling, is a character we discuss in this episode.Kim works in the business alongside her Netherlands-born winemaker husband, Bart Van Olphen. That’s one dynamic double act; another is Kim and her sister Tennille. As well as the nursery in Merbein, the family owns a large, diversely planted vineyard in Colbinabbin, in the Heathcote GI in central Victoria. We don’t talk much about the vineyard, which is an east-facing sloped site comprised of the famous red Cambrian soils of the area. The lower vineyard is deep, red clay-loam, while the higher vineyard is complex rocky terrain of ironstone, dolerite, green basalt and jasper. It is home to more than different grape varieties and supplies about 40 producers with grapes.This vineyard is the source for most wines produced under the Chalmers label, which we do discuss. We also mention Sandro Moselle, the former winemaker at Port Phillip Estate on the Mornington Peninsula, where the family wines were made until the winery was built in Merbein in the 2010s.On the subject of the vine selection and importation through the nursery business, Kim mentions Vivai Cooperativi Rauscedo (VCR) and explains how this extraordinary cooperative operates. In a similar vein, she talks about Gruppo Matura, a collective of Italian winemakers and agronomists collaborating to further Italian wine, both at home and overseas. Hugely influential winemaking consultant Alberto Antonini is a driving force behind this group, while Kim often refers to Stefano Dini as a brother; he has spent a lot of time with the Chalmers family and has done fascinating, effective work on their behalf. Kim and I recorded a bonus segment on this side of the business, which I hope to publish soon.Kim sits on the board of Wine Victoria and, like me, on the committee of Melbourne Royal Wine Awards. She is also a spearhead of the Alternative Varieties Wine Show (AAVWS), which takes place each November in Mildura. We talk at length about AAVWS, whose seed was planted as the Sangiovese Challenge in 1999, the brainchild of three people mentioned in the interview: Bruce Chalmers, restaurateur Stefano de Pieri and the late plant virologist Dr Rod Bonfiglioli. I have been fortunate to serve as a judge these past three years under the chair of judges, Leanne Altmann, the much-admired Melbourne sommelier that Kim mentions. Also namechecked are AAVWS president Corrina Wright, judge Kerri Thompson (KT) and regular entrant Richard Leask of Hither & Yon in McLaren Vale. For another perspective on AAVWS, please listen to Jeff Porter, 2023’s international judge, who was my guest on episode 6. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

There’s no challenge too steep for this brainiac entrepreneur viticulturist who likes to do things differently—and he’s certainly not done with redefining world-class New Zealand.Ambition is something Steve Smith can’t get enough of. He saw it in revolutionary viticulturist Richard Smart, who taught him to think. He saw it in Robert Mondavi and other doyens of the Napa Valley. He saw it in Sir George Fistonich, who wanted to turn a winery in receivership into the most decorated in New Zealand. And he would have seen it in himself long before—aged just 36 and having never run a business—he built Craggy Range from greenfield to world-renowned grandeur. His latest venture, spearheaded by Pyramid Valley, has limitless aspirations, and Steve wants to see Aotearoa get her mojo back and aim ever higher.I met Steve for the first time when he visited me on the Mornington Peninsula recently. He was in my neck of the woods at the invitation of Rollo Crittenden, who generously put his Dr Allan Antcliff Viticulture Award toward luring Steve to speak to the local vignerons’ association.Ours was a long, involved conversation, and most of the context can be found in the chat itself. We spoke in some detail about Steve’s roughly 10-year stint at Villa Maria, which makes wines from multiple regions. The next big project was at Craggy Range for the Peabody family, who still own the estate in Hawkes Bay on New Zealand’s North Island. Chris Pask and Alan Limmer (Stonecroft) are mentioned as pioneers of the Gimblett Gravels Wine Growing District, while other notables are Trinity Hill and Te Mata, maker of the famed Coleraine Cabernet blend.Te Muna is the Martinborough site that Steve mentions for Sauvignon Blanc, and the Larry who is mentioned is Larry McKenna, the legendary Prince of Pinot who made a global name for the Escarpment winery.That same winery was the former employer of Huw Kinch, who is the winemaker for Pyramid Valley, the Waikari-based (North Canterbury) jewel in the crown of Steve’s current venture with investor and environmentalist Brian Sheth. They bought Pyramid Valley from Claudia Weersing and her late husband Mike, hugely admired boundary-pushers for biodynamic farming, terroir winegrowing and natural wine (for some discussion on that last term, please visit episode 12 with Christina Pickard).Kinch and his family live on the Waikari property, while his viticulturist counterpart, Nick Paulin (ex-Felton Road), lives in Lowburn, Central Otago, where Pyramid’s Snake’s Tongue Pinot Noir is grown. As Steve says, their roles are not so neatly divided; both are involved in the vines and wines. For more on Central Otago, you can listen to episode 8 with PJ Charteris, while Steve namechecks wines he enjoys from here: Burn Cottage, Valli, Prophet’s Rock and Felton Road.Finally, when Steve speaks of Pyramid Valley being a twin-based estate, with a foot in North Canterbury and a foot in Central, he refers to the precedent set by Paul Draper of Ridge Vineyards in California, which has homes at Monte Bello and Lytton Springs. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Tim Shand is not one to follow the flock. In a world where yes-men get ahead and homogeneity wins widespread acceptance, his contrarian nature hasn’t always gone down well. But an impulse to challenge conventional wisdom and see through mediocrity has made him stand out from the crowd in the long run—and earn a shot at fulfilling a prodigious potential.I got to know Tim well when he was chief winemaker at Punt Road in Victoria’s Yarra Valley. Among notable achievements there, he won the highly prestigious Trevor Mast trophy for best Shiraz at Melbourne Royal Wine Awards for a grape supposedly grown in the wrong place on a workmanlike vineyard. He also turned the estate’s second label, Airlie Bank, from a routine quaffer line into a range of great-value, characterful, overdelivering wines that would get wine-buyers properly excited. In this conversation, we talk about how.Another storied wine was the 2012 Giant Steps Applejack Pinot Noir, which came within a whisker (there wasn’t quite enough produced to qualify… or was there?!) of being the first Pinot Noir to snag Australia’s most famous wine trophy, the Jimmy Watson. It was named best Pinot but missed out on the Jimmy to a Pinot it had bested in its own class. Go figure. Tim put that wine together while working as 2iC to Steve Flamsteed, my guest on episode 11. Tim references the Innocent Bystander cellar door and brand (now owned by Brown Brothers) that was the little sibling to Giant Steps (now owned by Jackson Family Estates), a single-vineyard Yarra project led by serial drinks entrepreneur Phil Sexton. Tim also mentions Dave Mackintosh (Arfion), Timo Mayer (more about him in this article) and Dave Bicknell of Oakridge.Hardys is a brand of what was formerly BRL Hardy and has now been subsumed (via Constellation) into the newly created Vinarchy group. Former podcast guests Steve Flamsteed and Anna Flowerday worked at Hardys and talked about their peers. Industry legend Paul Lapsley was was chief winemaker back in the day, and other names Tim drops are Kerri Thompson (Wines by KT; read about her here), Larry Cherubino (Cherubino), Simon Osicka (Paul Osicka) Ross Pamment (Houghton), Sue Bell (Bellwether), Mark O’Callaghan (Wine Network Consulting), sparkling guru Ed Carr (House of Arras) and Pete Dillon (Handpicked, which now owns Arras). Tim spent another vintage at McWilliams in Griffith with Adrian Sparks (now chief at Mount Pleasant), Andrew Higgins and Sam Brewer.The infamous Bordeaux chapter came about through advice from Brad Greatrix, who makes wine at English sparkling house Nyetimber with Cherie Spriggs. The late Paul Pontallier was in charge of Château Margaux at the time. Véronique Drouhin in Oregon was instrumental in making connections (Domaine Drouhin is an outpost of Burgundy producer Joseph Drouhin), including with Jeremy Seysses of Domaine Dujac, who is married to Napa-born vigneron Diana Snowden Seysses. The wine at the centre of an anecdote there is from the Monts Luisants 1er Cru vineyard in Morey-Saint-Denis in Burgundy.Back in Margaret River, Tim was appointed chief winemaker at Voyager Estate in mid-2022. He was hired by Alexandra Burt, who represents the second generation of the Wright family to own and operate this organic-certified domaine. It was Alex who lured philosopher A. C. Grayling to Voyager Estate earlier this year; Professor Grayling was my guest on episode 10. He gets a solid mention here, as do other leading lights close to Voyager’s home: Leeuwin Estate, Xanadu and Stella Bella, whose Luminosa Chardonnay, crafted by Luke Joliffe, is referenced.Lastly, Tim talks of catching up with Rob and Genevieve Mann of Corymbia the day we spoke. The Manns were visiting Voyager Estate with Andrew Marks of Gembrook Hill and his partner, Sophie—you can hear more about their friendship and accomplishments here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

His 19th-century forebear sold a bank to buy vineyards, so deeply did he believe in the beauty and promise of a red slab of ancient slated desert sand above the River Rhine.Make no mistake: Johannes Hasselbach is fully invested—even if there was a time when he might have wondered what on earth his great-, great, great, grandfather was thinking when he sold the family bank in 1890 to buy vineyards in Germany’s Rheinhessen.Carl Gunderloch, from whom this esteemed estate in Nackenheim takes its name, must have been utterly captivated by the Roter Hang, an east-facing red slope of compacted desert sand from the Permian era.And while Johannes didn’t initially see himself following in his footsteps, he has taken to the role of being a devoted servant of the majestic Rothenberg vineyard and its grand-cru siblings, Hipping and Pettenthal, in a deep-thinking, full-blooded fashion.Johannes was called to the winery in sudden and partly sad circumstances, when his younger sister—the heiress apparent—found love abroad and his father was subsequently taken ill. Fritz Hasselbach was a giant of German wine and is fondly evoked here. Fritz died in 2016, but not before he had put Gunderloch and Rothenberg firmly in the German premier league, not least for the sweet wines that won him a hat-trick of 100-point reviews in Wine Spectator. (Many may be familiar with Gunderloch’s everyday quaffer, Fritz’s Riesling, named in his honour.)If a quest to do Carl Gunderloch’s vineyards justice is a constant, much of this conversation revolves around change—generational, stylistic, climatic, technological—and, as such, provides a wonderful window onto the decision-making of an ethical farmer seeking the ultimate expression of that unique confluence of factors the French call “terroir”. Even that concept is subject to a twist here, when Johannes and I talk about his Wurzelwerk project, in which he swapped grapes with his friend, Theresa Breuer, and his brother-in-law and sister, Alwin and Stefanie Jurtschitsch. The vineyards in question were Rothenberg in Rheinhessen, Nonnenberg in the Rheingau and Heiligenstein in Austria’s Kamptal. Two other experiments we discuss are Al’s Wär’s Ein Stück Von Mir and Virgo. The former is an “ahead-of-its-time-old-school-wine”, the latter was a fascinating rendition of Rothenberg with the grapes picked, crushed and fermented—and the wine raised—in the vineyard. The idea was to give the site the ultimate opportunity to chuck all of its DNA at the resulting wine.There is inevitably talk of the VDP, a prestigious, private body of provenance-obsessed German growers, for whom Johannes serves as Rheinhessen’s regional president. We also mention Prädikat wines, which come with their own classification system. Both of these are further elucidated—and, trust me, it is interesting, relevant and understandable—in a bonus episode for paid subscribers (with an accompanying Substack post).Early on, Johannes mentions vintages he worked overseas with his (now) wife Marie. These were Jackson-Triggs in Canada’s Okanagan Valley, Martinborough Vineyard in New Zealand, and Jim Barry in Australia’s Clare Valley.Finally, among the growers Johannes cites as sharing his conception of a vigneron’s role are Philipp Wittmann (Rheinhessen), Cornelius Dönnhoff (Nahe), Tement and Wohlmuth (Südsteiermark/Southern Styria, Austria) and Vino Gross in Slovenia. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

From McLaren Vale to Marlborough, straight-shooting natural farmer Anna Flowerday has walked the walk with “vine Jedi” husband Jason—all the way to the title of NZ Vigneron of the Year.“Wines made with cowshit not bullshit” went the famous tagline at Te Whare Ra (TWR), the Marlborough estate Anna runs with her husband, Jason. It’s apt in so many ways: the indelicate language, the allusion to the use of manure in biodynamic viticulture and the disdain for dissimulation in the way people present their wines.Te Whare Ra is a Māori name meaning ‘house in the sun', and the vineyard was originally planted in 1979. Anna and Jason purchased the land in 2003 and have developed it into a humming 11-hectare site of predominantly loam over clay soils.Anna is a straight-talker, and one happy to voice and stand by her beliefs. She is a fierce advocate for organic viticulture, and TWR is certified by BioGroNZ. She champions her region of Marlborough as loudly as anyone. She has organised and spoken at a string of industry conferences, including a star turn at the Terroir Conference in Shanghai in 2017, where she shared the bill with global luminaries Aubert de Villaine of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, legendary consultant Stéphane Derenoncourt, Château Ausone owner Pauline Vauthier, and Rhône royalty Philippe Guigal. She is also thoroughly at home in the cellar door in Renwick, where she loves to encourage curiosity in all-comers and won’t shy away from difficult questions.She is, as this episode shows, what we used to call “natural”. Like the aromatic whites that make up the lion’s share of the TWR range, her candour is refreshing, too.I have known Anna for over a decade and have had the pleasure of seeing her and Jason in their element on the farm. I used to work for her Australian importer (whose co-owner, Patrick Walsh, appeared on episode 4), and refer here to an interview she gave in October 2014.The conversation for this episode took place during the week she and Jason were named New Zealand Vigneron of the Year by The Real Review, a prominent wine ratings website in Australia. We talk about the implications of this accolade for their small business.From her McLaren Vale childhood, she mentions Corrina Wright (née Rayment) of Oliver's Taranga and Malcolm and Richard Leask of Hither & Yon. The mentor she cites in her early hospitality role is Peter Morelli of Red Ochre Grill.Of Jason Flowerday’s history, the wineries he’d worked at in the Clare Valley (where Leasingham, then a brand of Hardys, is located) were Skillogalee and Crabtree. He was initially in Australia with NZ company Selaks (which also appears in my story on Kiwi-born Clare-dweller Col McBryde).Several names crop up going back to Anna’s days at BRL Hardy, including the inspirational higher-ups at the time, Peter Dawson and Tim James, who now make wine together in Tasmania under the Dawson James label. Stephen Pannell (Pannell Enoteca) and Glenn James (Billy Button) were the seniors then, and he talented group of namechecked peers include Pannell was group Red Winemaker then and Glenn James was group White Winemaker and then yeah was like Sue Bell (Bellwether), Larry Cherubino (Cherubino), Kerri Thompson (Wines by KT), Rob Mann (Corymbia), Fran Austin (Delamere) and Cynthea Semmens (Marion's Vineyard). Tintara is the name of a brand and historic winery in McLaren Vale. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

A discernible warmth always manages to seep through Christina Pickard’s writing, and it does nothing to lessen the import of her output, which is serious, considered and searching. The affection is infectious.Christina is based in the Hudson Valley in her native New York State, and her primary role is as writer-at-large for Wine Enthusiast, where her beat is Australia, New Zealand, the UK and New York.The two of us met years ago when she was living in Perth and writing for various magazines, including Decanter, Gourmet Traveller WINE and Halliday Wine Companion. Her years in WA made the wines of Margaret River and beyond ripe for discussion; for more on this area, make sure you check out episode 3 with our mutual friend, Erin Larkin.Some of the lesser-known Australian mentions go the way of William Downie and Patrick Sullivan in Gippsland, Victoria, and—on the subject of natural wine—James Erskine of Jauma and Anton van Klopper of Lucy M. On the subject of “natty” wine, in this conversation, we’re working with a definition of no additions in the winemaking process, including eschewing protective additions of sulphur dioxide (SO2). Pét-Nat is Pétillant-Naturel, a style of sparkling wine associated with this movement where the wine is bottled and sealed before the first fermentation is complete, leading to a cloudy wine with trapped CO2 from the ongoing fermentation creating the fizz. For more on natural wine—the concept, perceptions and positions—this is an excellent read from Simon J Woolf.Central to Christina’s London experience was Vinopolis, the wine-centric commercial visitor attraction in Southwark, which operated from 1999 to 2015. English wine also features in our chat—and pops up in our bonus segment on sparkling wine—and a couple of relative big-hitters, Gusbourne and Chapel Down, are namechecked here alongside Tim Wildman MW’s more leftfield Lost in a Field project.That brings us to the relatively obscure world of hybrid grapes, which Christina explains. These are the result of the crossing of two different Vitis species, such as the “European” grapevine, Vitis vinifera (to which all those famous mainstream grape varieties you know belong), with native North American species such as Vitis laubrusca, riparia, rupestris or berlandieri. (As an aside, grafting vinifera onto rootstocks derived from these species has been vital in giving the former resistance against pests like phylloxera or otherwise adapting it to inauspicious growing conditions.) The idea of quality wine from these hybrids and heritage varieties is the source of renewed curiosity—but most people, including me, have a lot to learn! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

Steve Flamsteed grew up in a full and lively household and succumbed to the pleasure of feeding people at a young age.Infected by punk energy from a young age, this lifelong devotee of good music has never lost the instinct of providing for—and feeding off—others.At the same time, a man whose curiosity led to a career-seeking quandary because cheffing, cheesemaking and wine all called with equally seductive siren voices.And though he chose wine, you feel the fusion of these things fuels his every move.Vininspo! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Steve is best known to most people for his 20-year stint as winemaker at Giant Steps, whose single-vineyard Chardonnay and Pinot Noir program was part-funded by the fast-growing wine brand Innocent Bystander.Steve joined serial drinks entrepreneur Phil Sexton—the man behind WA winery Devil’s Lair and the beer labels Little Creatures and Matilda Bay—right at the start, creating a multi-faceted drinks brand alongside a high-end label pushing the Aussie envelope with cool-climate site expression. Innocent Bystander has since been sold to Brown Brothers and Giant Steps to US group Jackson Family Estates. Mel Chester now makes the wines for the latter.The Beaujolais estate Steve works at is Domaine Saint Charles, where he met Dean Hewitson, who runs his Hewitson label out of the Barossa Valley. Milawa Cheese Company is where Steve worked with founder David Brown in Victoria’s King Valley. And I hope Steve whets your appetite for what I hope will be more Beechworth in the show. The names he mentions are Giaconda, Savaterre, Sorrenberg and A. Rodda.Steve is the third alumnus of Roseworthy Agricultural College to appear on the podcast. Meg Brodtmann (episode 9) and, especially, PJ Charteris (episode 8) shine a light on this storied Australian institution. While he was there, he mentions sharing a flat with Dave Bicknell and Nicky Harris, a husband-and-wife team these days making wines under the Bicknell FC label, while Dave is better known as the winemaking force behind Oakridge in the Yarra Valley.And we didn’t talk about the exceptional Yarra Valley Chardonnay Steve makes with his friend Dave Mackintosh under the Salo label (not much of it around, but do seek it out; it’s a brilliant wine). We did, however, mention his Decades project from Tasmania, and I hope you’ll be tempted to see what Steve does with that vineyard after hearing what makes this warm, intelligent, sensitive soul tick. You can here more about it in our bonus episode.Finally, Steve mentions a couple of things that are piquing those interests. One is the mezcal and tequila family of drinks deriving from the agave plant; the other shoutout goes to Lachlan Barber and the salty, briny wonders he's importing from his Sydney-based company, Cortez Trading Co. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe

A podcast that muses on the greater good of wine was never going to miss a chance to speak to one of the world’s most-renowned living thinkers.Anthony Grayling is a prolific author, as well as Master of the New College of the Humanities and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford.I caught up with him at the tail-end of his three-week stint as philosopher-in-residence at Margaret River’s Voyager Estate, whose winemaker, Tim Shand, made this episode possible.Professor Grayling is a regular visitor to Australia and appeared at this year’s Margaret River Readers and Writers Festival, followed by Melbourne Writers Festival, where he discussed his new book, Discriminations: Making Peace in the Culture Wars.Our conversation centred upon his previous book, Philosophy and Life: Exploring the Great Questions of How to Live, and how we might apply those lessons to growing, drinking and enjoying wine. A central concern is the Socratic challenge: the idea that the unconsidered life is not worth living—that if you don't reflect on your life and don't identify and choose the values you live by, then you are not fully living. “Most people would rather die than think, and many of them do!” said Bertrand Russell. Well, for the sake of wine, the planet and each other, Vininspo! is a fierce advocate of freedom of thought—well, let’s go one further: our responsibility to question, think and act accordingly.This was a fascinating discussion about curiosity, authenticity, resilience, fulfilment and much more.As well as Socrates himself, we discuss the Cynics, Epicureans and Stoics. Plato comes up, as does Cicero’s work De Amicitia. Also mentioned are Spinoza, Walter Pater, Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, whose Existentialism is a Humanism essay drives a complete answer on authenticity and commitment.In addition, I quote Robyn Archer from her 20-year-old Alfred Deakin Innovation Lecture, “Imagination and the Audience: Commissioning for Creativity”, as well as an excerpt from Nietzsche as cited in Geoff Dyer’s brilliant book, The Last Days of Roger Federer.A.C. Grayling among the organically farmed vines at Voyager Estate. Photo and cover image by Ovis Creative. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmerrison.substack.com/subscribe