Send us Fan Mail I’ve spoken to Giles Cooke before on the Cellar Door Podcast, usually about his successful Thistledown. But this conversation is a little different. I must warn listeners that some of the themes in this conversation are heavy, including loss, mental health and suicide. Behind Giles’s Our Fathers label is a story that I found genuinely moving. It’s a wine project that came out of an extraordinarily difficult period in Giles’ life, the loss of his father and mother, and t...

Send us Fan Mail What makes a wine business worth buying? You might think it's the vineyard. Or the winery. Maybe it's the brand, the wine sitting in the cellar, or the customers who have been buying it for generations. But what if one of the biggest things affecting the value of a wine business is actually the person who owns it? To answer these questions I reached out to Toby Langley of Langley and Co. Toby has spent decades working with buyers and sellers of wine businesses, and he has a f...

Send us Fan Mail For Mac Forbes, wine has never been just about what’s in the glass. It’s about identity. Place. Curiosity. And the willingness to choose the harder path in pursuit of something meaningful. Over the past two decades, Mac has built one of Australia’s most respected wine businesses by questioning convention—from dry farming and single vineyards to a philosophy centred on understanding the Yarra Valley on its own terms. In this conversation, we explore the challenges facing Austr...

Send us Fan Mail Most conversations about wine start with a simple assumption: that there is such a thing as the wine market. Joe Fattorini argues that's completely wrong. In this episode, we unpack why treating wine as a single market leads to poor marketing, poor positioning, and missed opportunities. Drawing on examples from around the world, Joe explains why the most successful wine businesses don't try to sell to everyone—they understand exactly who they're selling to, why those people b...

Send us Fan Mail For most wine drinkers, a wine show is something that happens in the background. A medal on a bottle. A trophy announced at an awards dinner. A score that helps guide a purchasing decision. But behind those medals sits one of the most important institutions in Australian wine. This year, the Sydney Royal Wine Show celebrates an extraordinary milestone: 200 years since wine was first included in the competitions of what would become the Royal Agricultural Society of New South ...

Send us Fan Mail This episode welcomes back Ed Cavanagh — wine writer, historian, policy researcher, and author of the forthcoming book Crushed: The Hand of Government on the Australian Wine Industry. Ed has spent the last several years digging into the policies, regulations, and market forces that have shaped Australian wine, and his latest paper examines the controversial topic of : ghost labels. Ghost labels are wine brands created and owned by major retailers rather than independent winer...

Send us Fan Mail For many wineries, making great wine is only half the challenge. The other half is getting that wine into the hands of consumers. Behind every bottle that finds its way onto a restaurant wine list, an independent retailer's shelf, or a national distribution network sits a commercial relationship that most wine drinkers never see. And when those relationships work well, they can help build brands, grow businesses, and create long-term success. When they don't, the consequences...

Send us Fan Mail For centuries, France has occupied a unique place in the world of wine. Its vineyards, classifications, language, and traditions have shaped how we think about fine wine, from Bordeaux and Burgundy to concepts like terroir and appellation. But how did French wine come to dominate the global imagination? And was that dominance really built on superior wine, or on something else entirely? My guest today is historian Kathy Burk. Kathy is Professor Emerita of Modern and Contempor...

Send us Fan Mail For more than four decades, Charles Melton has been one of the defining voices of the Barossa Valley. His journey stretches from the wine glut of the 1980s, through the rise of modern Australian wine, to the creation of one of the country's most recognisable labels. I recently had the pleasure of sitting down at the Charles Melton winery on Krondorf Road with Charles Melton and his daughter Sophie Melton, the next generation helping to shape the future of the family business....

Send us Fan Mail Wine is full of simple stories. Old vines are better than young vines. Great vineyards are all about terroir. Climate determines quality. Pick the right variety, put it in the right place, and the rest takes care of itself. They're neat stories. They're marketable stories. According to this week's guest, they're also dangerously incomplete. Dylan Grigg is one of the most respected viticulturists in Australia. He's a consultant, researcher, vineyard owner, international speake...