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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 speaker, former Australian Viticulturist of the Year, and a man whose work takes him from the Barossa Valley to Tasmania, Western Australia, California, Spain and beyond.

In this conversation, we explore the extraordinary complexity that exists beneath the surface of every vineyard. We discuss old vines, epigenetics, vine memory, climate variability, regenerative viticulture, and why so many of the questions wine lovers ask can never be answered with a simple yes or no.

We unpack Dylan's remarkable journey from a young apprentice chef in the Barossa to earning a PhD, before relocating his family to Catalonia and building an international reputation as one of the wine industry's most respected vineyard minds.

Along the way, Dylan explains why vineyards aren't spreadsheets, why experience matters as much as science, and why the best viticulturists often spend their lives becoming more comfortable with uncertainty rather than less.

This is my conversation with Dylan Grigg. A huge thanks to Dylan for joining me

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In Part 1 of my conversation with wine industry commentator, producer, and recovering wine critic Robert Joseph, we explored a deceptively simple question: where do wineries actually make their money?

But that conversation quickly led to a much bigger one.

What happens when the traditional wine business model comes under pressure?

In this second part, we move beyond profitability and into the forces reshaping the global wine industry. We discuss ageing vineyard owners, succession challenges, private equity, direct-to-consumer sales, wine tourism, changing consumer behaviour, and why adaptation may be the defining challenge for wineries over the next decade.

We also tackle the role of wine critics and traditional wine media, and Robert offers some characteristically frank views on Australia's place in the global wine market and whether we've lost clarity about what Australian wine stands for internationally. Buckle up for this section team. 

Whether you're a wine producer, retailer, marketer, or simply fascinated by the business of wine, there's plenty here to challenge conventional thinking.

And if you'd like to explore these ideas further, I highly recommend following Robert's work through Wine Thinker and his Substack, where he continues to ask some of the most important, and often uncomfortable, questions facing the wine industry today.

This is Part 2 of my conversation with Robert Joseph.

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For a long time, the wine industry has sold itself on romance.

The rolling vineyard. The family story. The passionate winemaker chasing perfection in a bottle.

But behind every bottle of wine is something far more complicated: a business model. And right now, many of those models are under enormous pressure.

In this conversation, Robert Joseph returns to The Cellar Door Podcast to unpack one of the most important, and least understood, questions in wine:

How does the wine industry actually make money?

From tiny family growers to giant corporations, cooperatives, negociants, supermarkets, private labels, cellar doors and direct-to-consumer sales, Robert peels back the layers of an industry where agriculture, luxury, hospitality, branding, land value and distribution all collide. 

We talk about why some wineries survive while others struggle, why owning vineyard land is not always the asset people think it is, how supermarkets and distribution chains shape the entire market, and why the future belongs to producers who think beyond simply growing grapes and making wine.

This is one of those conversations that changes the way you look at the wine business, and maybe the wine bottle sitting in front of you.

Here is my conversation with Robert Joseph.

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Over the last year, while speaking with people across the Australian wine industry, one name kept unexpectedly coming up in conversation in connection with the Queensland market, not a winemaker, not a sommelier, but a lawyer.

Today’s guest is Travis Schultz, founder of Travis Schultz & Partners, philanthropist, wine writer, and someone who has quietly built some of Queensland’s most respected wine events.

Through events supporting charities including SunnyKids and LifeFlight, Travis has used wine not simply as a product, but as a powerful tool for connection, bringing together winemakers, professionals, community leaders, and wine lovers to raise millions of dollars for good causes.

We discuss everything from the anatomy of a great wine event, to why wine creates a different kind of conversation, through to the upcoming Noosa Concours d'Elegance activation, where Travis and his team will host an exclusive winemakers lunch in the middle of one of Australia’s most spectacular luxury events.

But beneath the wine, the stories, and the philanthropy, this conversation is really about something deeper: the role wine plays in bringing people together.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is my conversation with Travis Schultz.

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Late last year I had the pleasure of speaking with Pipa Nielson who gave an exciting and colourful introduction to the Western Australian region of Geographe wine region. Following that first course in Geographe education, Pipa arranged a second: a conversation with wine rockstar, Kim Horton, of Willow Bridge Estate.

After growing up in the Swan Valley, Kim has made wine across multiple regions in WA, and in this conversation I get to ask him what makes Geographe, and the broader WA wine scene, so very special. Kim’s story is also fascinating, with early aspirations in the finance sector… aspirations that took a remarkably different turn.

What follows is a deep dive into a young region that’s still defining itself. We talk about the diversity of Geographe, from coastal plains to the elevated Ferguson Valley, and how that translates into a wide spectrum of wine styles. 

This is a conversation about people and craft. Kim shares what it’s really like to be a winemaker: the highs, the setbacks, and the reality of building a career in an industry that’s anything but predictable.

This is Geographe, through the eyes of someone living and shaping it.

A huge thanks to Kim Horton for joining. 

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To borrow from Monty Python: now for something completely different.

This episode steps away from the usual B2B conversations and industry stories, and into something I don’t usually focus on… wine tasting.

When a mystery box of wine appeared on my doorstep, filled with a collection of genuinely exotic and intriguing bottles, I did what anyone would do: I tracked down the sender. That trail led me to none other than the talented, guitar-shredding, wine-slinging Marc Malouf of iHeart Wine, and a very generous supporter and benefactor.

So I thought, why not lean into it?

In this episode, we put the usual format to one side and let Marc guide us through a flavour-filled journey across a lineup of wines that are as diverse as they are exciting.

For those who are interested, the lineup includes:

• A fun 2020 Nebbiolo blend from the Muraje label in Piedmont;
• A 2024 Vermentino from La Magia in Tuscany;
• The 2022 Definitus Pinot Noir from Tapanappa’s Foggy Hill Vineyard in the Fleurieu Peninsula;
• A 2023 Mas Jullien rosé from France’s Languedoc region;
• A 2023 Clos Marie Manon, also from the Languedoc region;
• And finally, a Blanc de Blancs from Boll & Cie in Champagne.

Along the way, we’re joined by a special guest, my brother-in-law Mac, bringing a fresh perspective as a passionate foodie discovering these wines in real time, whenever I let him get a word in. Yes, I know I can yap.

I hope you enjoy this different style chit chat, and a massive thanks to Marc and Mac for joining me.

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The Hunter Valley occupies a special place in the story of Australian wine. It is, in many ways, the spiritual birthplace of the industry - a region where generations of families have wrestled with the climate, the soil, and the vagaries of the market to produce wines of remarkable character.

My guest today, Garth Eather, represents one of those families.

Garth is the co-founder of Meerea Park Wines, a winery he established with his brother Reese in 1991. But the Eather family story in Australia goes back much further than that,  all the way to the arrival of the Second Fleet in 1790, and more than two centuries of agricultural history in what would eventually become the Hunter Valley wine region.

In this conversation, Garth shares that remarkable family history,  from convict beginnings to grape growing, and eventually to building one of the Hunter Valley’s most respected small wineries. We also talk about what it really takes to survive as a small producer today: the reality of direct-to-consumer sales, the challenges facing regional tourism, and why some of the best wines the Hunter Valley has ever produced are being made right now, even as the market becomes harder than ever.

Along the way, we dive into the character of the Hunter Valley itself, its legendary Chardonnay, Semillon and Shiraz, its fiercely site-specific vineyards, and the deep sense of history that still shapes the region today. You cannot help but hear the pride Garth has for the Hunter and its stories, and this is reflected through their wines. We talk through three of their releases and we discuss what I describe as the bold strategy underpinning the Etherial (sorry for the pun) Stratos Chardonnay. 

This is a conversation about wine, certainly, but also about family, resilience, and the stories that define a place - because that is really what wine is all about. 

A huge thanks to Garth for joining me. 

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Australian wine once rode a remarkable wave of success in the United States — built on strong personalities, passionate importers, and wines that connected with everyday drinkers. Today, the picture is more complicated.

In this episode, I sit down with Chuuuuck Hayward, a 40-year veteran of the American wine trade to unpack what’s really happening on the ground in the US. We revisit, the rise of Australian wine in the US, the role boutique importers played in building the category, and why the loss of ambassadors, changing distribution networks, and shifting market priorities may now be reshaping its future.

We also dive into some tough questions:
Have everyday wine drinkers been forgotten? What happens when distribution keeps changing? And how should Australia position itself in a crowded US market?

This is a candid conversation about the challenges, the history, and the opportunities ahead for Australian wine. A huge thanks to Chuck for joining me. 

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