I started my journey on wine in 2004 where I dated a lovely young lady and her father always showed me some amazing wines at the dinner table on special events. I did not realise that I was gifted by a grandfather who had an amazing palate and was always akin to good wines and drank them happily. I could recall as a little tacker having the “odd sip” or two of his wines and never would imagine that would be a small platform for my future some 30 years later. In the years of 2003-2005 I worked in a perfume shop and learnt a lot there. Again unknown to me it was an amazing platform with valuable teachings that would assist my wine journey. In that industry I was known to be able to smell a fragrance and be able to identify it to a possibility of 3 bottles (of the hundreds available at the time) and generally get it correct the first time. This taught me an enormous lesson in the training of smells to the brain and being able to recall a smell to a bottle and intern sell a perfume.
These foundations were critical to me as in time and after a near death accident I fell into wine. In mid 2008 I was in a horrible accident, which resulted in some horrific circumstances. From broken bones to my lungs filling up with blood I was set to die. I suffered Injuries that most would not survive and having a great family helped me get through. My injuries included a broken neck, I fractured c4,c5,c6 and blew my Thoracic spine out, my T6 vertebrae was totally removed it was that badly broken and now my t6 is titanium held together from t5-t7 and fused at t4-t8. My femur was totally snapped it 2, a bone that needs 3 tonnes of force or more to break and doctors marveled that it did not kill me alone (with a severed main vain), I also, I also shattered my right shoulder and several right ribs also suffered many cuts, burises and other minor injurues. But against the odds I did survive, gratuitous but in a monster amount of in pain but survived.
In Australia we have a funny medical system, the better you seem to be the less you are rewarded. In my circumstances I was heavily medicated on copious amounts of morphine and as I was seen to recover I was awarded with less medication resulting in more pain and less will to get better. Being a problem solver I took kindly to drinking vodka to numb the pain and assist sleep but quickly that became an expensive habit. Alternatively, I took to cheap wines after that and that was the platform for my future.
After receiving exposure to some amazing wines in my younger years I noticed a difference in taste. I decided to explore the shops and ask the simple question of “Why?” The question of “Why?” became the benchmark and the reason why I took the journey to see, taste and own some of the worlds most expensive and desirable wines.
My question of “Why?” was the following, “why is this wine $4, that one $40 and one $400 and all from the same wine maker but some are different vintages and varietals?” I asked this question to a fella named Tom and he (being a tall guy) pushed a few bottles aside on the top shelf and reached behind them for a book. It was a 2009 Wine guide, he handed it to me and I skimmed through it and asked again “Why, what does this book mean and how do I read it?” It was all too confusing to me and Tom simply opened the index page of the book and taught me about the 20 and 100 point score to asses wines (which is an old and new scale) and showed me to the top wine for the year for that critic. That book became my foundation of learning and opened up a journey for me that have showed me things I’d only ever dreamed to see or do in a lifetime.It allowed me to travel the world and be in some of the most picturesque environments down to the dustiest cellars in the world. It opened me up to meet amazing people and continually leads to many good nights of amazing fine wines and constantly hearing fulfilling and successful stories from clients based on events, business or milestones that they have achieved or simply great wine tails that stay sometimes in the deepest of cellars
Amongst sipping some prestige wines and being around some amazing people I have been confined to many planes and seasonal changes. So it is not all the glory story I make it, but I have been forced to learn and visit places you would never think wine to exist and some of these places have totally blown my mind.
All in all I personally feel this journey is only starting and simply becoming a small chapter in a massive novel of my life.
