Aesthetics and integrity matter to Erin Larkin, the Wine Advocate reviewer for Australia and New Zealand.

She grew up in Perth, a chic street urchin around the oceanside neighbourhoods of Perth who found joy in making things.

That turned into an early career in fashion and a lifelong love of style, patterns, materials, details—and dressing well.

As is often the case with creative people in underpaid jobs, she moonlighted in bottle shops and borderline hospitality, where parallels with her approach to fashion and a burgeoning curiosity in people and places plunged her deep into the world of wine.

In 2020, Erin became a critic at Halliday Wine Companion, Australia’s most prolific publisher of reviews. She balanced this with various presenting, judging and writing gigs.

A couple of years later, a fateful call from The Wine Advocate made her a full-time international critic. She’s the first Australia-based reviewer for the publication, which grew out of Robert M. Parker Jr's late-1970s direct-mail newsletter, The Baltimore-Washington Wine Advocate. Parker went on to become the world's most influential wine critic, and his magazine has grown into a crack international team headed by editor-in-chief William Kelley.

Erin and I were both selected as scholars for the Len Evans Tutorial in 2022. Andrea Pritzker MW was also a member of that contingent; for more on LET, as it’s known, please listen to episode 2 of the podcast.

Erin is thoughtful and thoroughly articulate about the evolution of her writing and approach to criticism. There is a large element of making your own luck in the way she has thrown herself into opportunities in wine, thriving on curiosity.

We also went into depth about the most exciting wines coming out of Margaret River, Swan Valley and Great Southern in her home state of Western Australia.

I really hope you enjoy the conversation. And I’d love to hear from you—please like, subscribe, share and comment. Your curiosity and input make the wine world go round!

Think about your first taste of a world expanding beyond your borders. When you’re small, so is your world; foreignness is a stone’s throw away. You have only a handful of experiences. Everything is new.

I grew up in Rye, East Sussex, in the southeast of England. I loved it there. From that town, we’d venture out. Places like Tenterden and Hastings were foreign, then became familiar. Less regularly, we might go to Brighton, big enough to have a football team that played on TV—but that was still in the same county.

We checked off London, too, the grand capital. We had cousins in other counties: Norfolk, Suffolk and Berkshire. Interminable car rides, but worth it to discover uncharted territory.

And there were rumours of other lands and times all around us. Julius Caesar was said to have landed nearby, and a Norman king called William the Conqueror won the Battle of Hastings in 1066. He came from France, so that was close.

Horizons busted left, right and centre. The world was already mindblowing.

I learned French at primary school, a special treat because a teacher had married a mademoiselle or something. We had a workbook called Salut! filled with words to learn, sentences to complete and market scenes to colour in.

Before I was 10, we went on a school trip to France—just an hour away by ferry—and stayed a few days. The ham (jambon), cheese (fromage), bread (pain), butter (beurre) and jam (confiture) were all different (and yummy). Loaves were “baguettes”, and they were long and thin. Best of all, they had things called “croissants” and bowls—not mugs, bowls—of hot chocolate for breakfast.

What was also cool was that if you said the stuff from Salut! to grown-ups in France, they understood you. They smiled at you. And they talked back.

You learned that “voyager” means “to travel”, and “Bon voyage” was “Have a nice trip”. But why even bother saying that? Of course, you were going to.

Because travelling was easy. And fun. You just made it up as you went along—listened, copied, tried stuff, and it all fell into place.

I’ll be honest: I don’t believe the wine world works like this.

But I’ll also say this: It absolutely bloody well should.

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Sure, wine presents challenges, just like travel—you need a passport to travel, a smattering of local lingo, a handle on local customs and the ability to whittle down options from the seemingly infinite to the feasibly doable.

In the travel realm, you take these in your stride. Some, indeed are a titillating part of its novelty.

In wine, they can present barriers.

You might say wine is complicated, but it isn’t. It undoubtedly gets complicated, but that doesn’t have to happen until you’re good and ready. (And, when you are, that’s another part of its magic.)

But look at it this way. Paris is complicated. Yeah, yeah, I know people “do Paris”, often on the same trip as they might “do Rome” and “check out Prague”. But scoffing a pain au chocolat halfway up the Eiffel Tower is just the start of the story. How far do you want to go?

The key is, the start of the story should be fun and kindle the curiosity to dig deeper. To take the next step in your stride should take little more than the inquisitiveness and consciousness (and smidge of audacity) that got you this far.

But here’s the problem (and I’m here to solve it): When you travel, you have baggage. Literally.

When you come to wine… well, it’s wine that has the baggage. And it really shouldn’t, so let’s get rid of it.

Too much (read almost all) content in this realm starts with the premise that wine is somehow special. Of course, wine is somehow special, otherwise, why would Vininspo! exist?

But it isn’t special in the way they make you think it is.

Wine is wholly relatable. The fermented juice of fruit grown by people in nature. It’s straightforward.

If you drink wine and count it as part of your culture, you’re fortunate.

But again, you’re not fortunate in the way they’d have you believe.

You’re lucky because you have the wherewithal to avail yourself of a drink that exists for pleasure. You won’t die without it, but you have a good chance of living better with it.

But here’s the point. It’s not “special” in the sense that it’s the preserve of the initiated, the in-crowd, the elite. And you’re not “fortunate” in the sense that you’ve been granted access by the beneficence of some omniscient deity.

Everyone should feel they belong in the world of wine and feel their voice deserves to be heard. A bottle of wine contains mysteries; we’re the traveller knocking at its door. And the precious innocence the traveller brings—like that Salut!-reading schoolkid with his croissant-flaked grin— should be warmly welcomed.

I’ve been shown outrageous kindness by strangers as I’ve travelled the world. My countless stupid questions have been greeted not by scoffs and scorn but by patience and a will to have me understand. If anything, my ignorance has been accepted as a token in exchange for enlightenment.

We live in times where fleeting, second-hand impressions stand in for first-hand experience. But away from the smartphone screen, we know there’s no substitute for living in the moment.

The world around us is fascinating. Its palette of sights, sounds and tastes is so rich and varied. The layers of history and possibilities of the future. And perhaps we forget that love and friendship go far beyond what we might have now. People, for all their faults, are amazing.

What’s special about wine is that it brings together all this wonder. As with travel, there’s no one set journey, no universal itinerary, no ultimate destination. There are endless meandering, crisscrossing paths. Each is lined with sensations and surprises.

To navigate them, just pay attention. Look. Sniff. Taste. Listen. Talk. Learn. On the way you might change your mind; that’s fine. You’ll get good advice, take-or-leave tips and unwanted input.

But—and here’s the important bit—the person leading the way is you. Every single step can be more rewarding than the last. Every prior experience illuminates the next moment.

By paying attention—to sensations and the worldly detail around wine (Who made it? From what? Where? When? How?)—you’ll write your own inner travelogue.

That journal you pen in your imagination informs and enriches future experiences. And—like the traveller emboldened to speak up and become immersed—it makes the world light up and open a little wider.

Everything is new.

This is a highly relatable story that highlights what happens when an inquisitive, broad-minded go-getter happens to tug on the wine-discovery thread.

That said, there are a few references to education experiences that give useful context.

As a member of the Institute of Masters of Wine, Andrea Pritzker MW has achieved the pinnacle of achievement in wine academia. The MW started out in the 1950s as a qualification for the UK wine trade and has transformed into a hugely coveted and highly regarded qualification the world over.

As we discuss, the exam is notoriously tough, comprising a rigorous theory, tasting and research papers covering all aspects of wine production, evaluation, business and beyond. Today, there are some 425-odd MWs based in 30 countries.

Andrea's Wine inTuition business offers courses at all levels of the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET).

This set of formal, UK-administered qualifications covers tasting and theory across all key wine global styles. It runs from the rudimentary one-day beginner certificate to the prestigious and demanding WSET Diploma, viewed by many as a stepping stone to the Master of Wine.

Finally, we speak of the Len Evans Tutorial, which has been described as "the greatest wine school on earth". Taking place each year in the Hunter Valley, NSW, since 2001, a dozen scholars are selected from all segments of the wine profession—winemakers, viticulturists, sommeliers, writers—to take part each year.

Over five days, scholars are put through their paces in a series of 30-wine judging sessions, with their performance scrutinised by a panel of veteran judges, category specialists and former top scholars. There are also masterclasses and dinners with a focus on reading, assessing and articulating some of the finest wines on earth—many of them old and vanishingly rare.

Andrea and I were privileged to get called up in 2022, and yes - she came out on top!

Alsace is an oft-misunderstood place. It's easy to see why; it's a highly complex character with a rich, diverse history and culture.

Who better to help us get to grips with this fascinating place and its wines than Australia-loving Alsatian, Frédéric Blanck?

Freddy's ancestors came to Alsace some 250 years ago. They farmed everything, including grapes. And in the mid-’80s, Freddy and his cousin Philippe decided to rename the domaine after their grandpa and turn it into one of the region's leading lights.

“Vins d’émotion” is the estate’s tagline—wines of emotion—I think that sums it up pretty darn well.

Freddy likes to come to Australia every summer. He loves it here, plus a couple of his children live downunder—including his son, Lucas, who is the owner and vigneron at Kerri Greens in Red Hill.

I hope you enjoy our conversation, and learn something about this beautiful place.