UK wine writer Jamie Goode will get hands-on with Australian wine

Jamie Goode, London-based wine writer for UK national newspaper The Sunday Express and publisher of leading wine website WineAnorak.com, will land in Sydney this Thursday and get a hands-on Australian wine experience, embarking on a 10-day itinerary starting with an appearance at this weekend’s Rootstock Sydney festival.

Sponsored by Wine Australia, Jamie will also visit the Adelaide Hills, Barossa, Gippsland, Yarra Valley and Macedon Ranges wine regions.

Mike Bennie, wine writer and co-founder/co-director of Rootstock Sydney alongside James Hird (chef/sommelier) and Giorgio de Maria (sommelier and wine importer) said, ‘Thanks to the evolving culture and support from Wine Australia we’ve been able to host Jamie Goode at this year’s Rootstock Sydney festival to give him a direct line to some of the most exciting wine producers in Australia right now.

‘Wine Australia bringing Jamie out has meant that we’re giving the broad, engaged readership of WineAnorak.com the opportunity to get a feel for the landscape of thrilling wines that often don’t leave our shores. We can present a more varied, broad spectrum of winemaking influences that are an emerging story of Australian wine. 

At this weekend’s Rootstock Sydney festival, Jamie will use his deep knowledge on the subject of natural wine, stemming from his researched, published work Authentic Wine: Toward Natural and Sustainable Winemaking to anchor some of the festival’s talks. This includes Jamie leading the conversation ‘A History of Natural Wine’ alongside natural wine luminary Thierry Puzelat, which will use touchstones from Australia’s wine scene to cement the subject matter. 

‘Wine Australia has also been intrinsic in getting Jamie into a program that sees him visiting a broad spectrum of Australian wine producers in their varied wine regions. Jamie will visit luminary winegrowers through to newer generation wine producers eking out small batch wines of great interest.

‘He’ll be on a whistle-stop tour that takes him to the Adelaide Hills, Barossa Valley, Yarra Valley, Gippsland and Macedon Ranges – we’re hoping he gets a good feel for some of the lesser seen but important stories coming from these great wine regions.’

Wine Australia’s General Manager of Marketing Stuart Barclay says that bringing influential international wine professionals to our wine regions is the best way to tell the Australian wine story.

‘Sponsoring visits by esteemed wine influencers is critical to our strategic priority of raising global perceptions of Australian wine.

‘By experiencing some of the exciting things happening in Australian food and wine culture at Rootstock Sydney and then visiting some of the regions producing distinctively Australian fine wine, Jamie will hopefully leave with a greater understanding of the breadth of Australian wine being produced and the unique terroirs of our regions’, he said.