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PODCAST

Vininspo! podcast

A podcast in plain English about connection through wine—linking nature, time, place and people—to unlock its meditative, restorative, inclusive and expansive potential and brighten the experience of anyone with the vaguest interest. edmerrison.substack.com

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All Episodes

57:26

Vininspo! Podcast Episode 28: Corrina Wright,...

Vininspo! podcast ·

2025/10/24

The first time I met Corrina Wright, she was done up in Viking garb and grinning like a Cheshire cat. It was Melbourne’s inaugural Game of Rhônes tasting, a celebration of all things Grenache, Shiraz et al, and one of those too-rare wine events where a cheerful disposition is de rigueur. But even Corrina’s resting b***h face is probably a big, warm smile. Injustice and inanity are enough to wipe it off, but only for as long as it takes for her to speak up, pitch in and set it straight.Vininspo! is

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61:36

Vininspo! Podcast Episode 27: Maryann Egan, Wantirna...

Vininspo! podcast ·

2025/10/10

Some people don’t even believe there’s a vineyard there, let alone the site that spawned a second coming for one of the country’s most hallowed cool-climate regions.Reg Egan was working as a lawyer when he decided to plant a vineyard in the Yarra Valley in 1963. The site he chose was not far from his Melbourne practice—so close, in fact, that he was sure he’d have to sell it in the medium term. He had a contingency for that, which didn’t work out as he’d expected. That’s a fascinating anecdote

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64:20

Vininspo! Episode 26: Julian Langworthy, Deep Woods...

Vininspo! podcast ·

2025/09/26

Julian Langworthy first struck me as the embodiment of happy-go-luckiness. A healthy irreverence, ready quip and loud laugh were standard issue, and he seemed to be breaking and losing more trophies than anyone else was winning.I was the Victorian chair of Wine Communicators of Australia when Julian’s 2014 Deep Woods Estate Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon won the Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy at the Melbourne Royal Wine Awards. No wonder he looked like the cat that got the cream at the awards lunch we

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57:15

Vininspo! Episode 25: Kathleen Quealy

Vininspo! podcast ·

2025/09/12

I vividly recall my first meeting with Kathleen Quealy. I had tasted and delighted in her Pobblebonk field blend of Friulano, Riesling and Pinot Gris, and followed it up with the Rageous red, an unlikely marriage of Sangiovese, Shiraz and Pinot Noir. Among the Mornington Peninsula’s calm little sea of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, these outlandishly named, labelled and assembled interlopers smacked of anarchy.Rocking up at Balnarring Vineyard felt like landing in the outskirts of an Irish country town

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71:02

Vininspo! Episode 24: Max Allen

Vininspo! podcast ·

2025/08/29

Not starting with an end in mind has led this English-born, multi-award-winning writer to unearth profound connections down labyrinthine rabbit holes.Max Allen is too young to be deemed a national treasure, but that’s what he is. In a field where the esteem in which commentators are held is generally a measure not of perspicacity or originality but of perceived influence on potential sales, Max’s gift—and thirst—for meaningful storytelling is a rare and precious thing.Max is an award-winning

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52:10

Vininspo! Episode 23: Steve Lubiana, Stefano Lubiana

Vininspo! podcast ·

2025/08/22

It makes sense when you meet Steve Lubiana that he was up to his chin in grape skins from the moment he could walk, snapping at the heels of his winemaker dad. There’s barely a moment when Steve isn’t playing with plants, fermenting stuff or pouring drinks to try with food.I first met Steve and his wife Monique, who is just as much a part of Stefano Lubiana, in Milan, of all places. They were looking at equipment at a wine industry fair that I’d been sent to cover for an Australian technical

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57:19

Vininspo! Episode 22: Gwyn Olsen, Henschke

Vininspo! podcast ·

2025/08/15

I told Gwyn Olsen when I first met her that I somehow expected her to be stern. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard that—apparently, it’s how she’d come across in photographs in the wine press. In reality, she is anything but; sharp, warm and witty, I was intrigued by how her mind worked, and how that feeds into what she creates.I first heard of Gwyn during what seems like her breakthrough year of 2014, when she was named Young Winemaker of the Year in the now-defunct Gourmet Traveller WINE

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59:51

Vininspo! Episode 21: Geoff Weaver, Adelaide Hills...

Vininspo! podcast ·

2025/08/08

Geoff Weaver is a man from another time—a world of steam trains and horse-and-cart milkmen—yet his pristine, cool-climate white wines hold their own with the best of the modern Australian wine scene.I’ve got to know Geoff pretty well over the years, thanks to my role with his distributor, CellarHand, which gets a mention in this conversation as the importer of Mosel estate Dr Loosen.I have interviewed him a couple of times before, once about his love of his vineyard in Lenswood, which was damaged by

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60:05

Vininspo! Episode 20: Rob Mann, Corymbia

Vininspo! podcast ·

2025/08/01

Rob Mann has gone a long way to get back where he started; he's a forward-thinking high-achiever with a strong sense of self who's working extremely hard to efface any notion of ego or fashion from the wines he grows.His wines are produced under the Corymbia label, which he runs with his wife, Genevieve. Gen is a gem; she shies away from the limelight but is an exceptionally intelligent, sensitive winegrower. She was a scholar at the Len Evans Tutorial the same year as me; it's always a pleasure to

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63:29

Vininspo! Episode 19: Belinda Thomson, Crawford River

Vininspo! podcast ·

2025/07/24

Crawford River is off the beaten track—on the road to nowhere, as Bee Thomson puts it—yet lovers of elegant, soulful, deftly balanced wines make a beeline to this second-generation label because they know precisely what it stands for.Much of the credit goes to Bee’s worldly parents, John and Catherine Thomson. John was the visionary who planted the vines in Condah in what is now southwest Victoria’s Henty region in 1975.In one of Australia’s chilliest pockets for grape-growing, there wasn’t much

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21:42

[Hiatus] Marksist evolution: How a timeless gem is...

Vininspo! podcast ·

2025/07/17

This is the story of Gembrook Hill.All the context is in the story. It’s a long article, addressing perhaps my frustration with the shallowness of much so-called storytelling around wine. This is just a second-generation estate in a wine region whose modern era only dates back 60-odd years.And yet there is so much richness of consideration, camaraderie, aspiration and endeavour wrapped up in it.Please let me know your thoughts on the piece and this format of delivering it.In the meantime, thanks for

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21:14

[Hiatus] Vaughn again: Growing and regrowing love at...

Vininspo! podcast ·

2025/07/10

This is the story of Vaughn Dell and Linda Morice, written towards the end of 2024. If you’d prefer to read it, you can do so here.All the context is in the story. It’s dear to my heart; I hope you’ll listen.Please leave a comment to share your thoughts on the piece and this format of delivery.In the meantime, thanks for tuning into Vininspo!—I look forward to bringing you most podcast episodes when I get back from a short break.Please check out edmerrison.substack.com to see the original version of

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60:33

Vininspo! Episode 18: David Lloyd, ex-Eldridge Estate

Vininspo! podcast ·

2025/07/03

I got to know David Lloyd when he was living on his beautiful Eldridge Estate in Red Hill, a few kilometres up the road from where I live on the Mornington Peninsula. A fellow journalist on a trade magazine I’d been freelancing for suggested I contact him because I was scouting around for some vineyard experience. David was a good bloke, excellent winemaker and could do with a hand, he said.This all turned out to be true. The reason David could do with a hand, I discovered, was that his wife, Wendy,

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64:41

Vininspo! Episode 17: Kim Chalmers, Chalmers Wines

Vininspo! podcast ·

2025/06/27

Kim Chalmers wears many hats, not least in a family business that serves as vine nursery, grape supplier and wine estate with vineyards in two separate geographical indications (GIs). She’s also wife to a winemaker and mother of two daughters, as well as serving on numerous committees. “History is made by those who turn up,” she says—and she turns up every time, full of enthusiasm.Bruce and Jenni Chalmers are the green-fingered parents who started growing all kinds of things in New South Wales

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60:14

Vininspo! Episode 16: Steve Smith MW

Vininspo! podcast ·

2025/06/19

There’s no challenge too steep for this brainiac entrepreneur viticulturist who likes to do things differently—and he’s certainly not done with redefining world-class New Zealand.Ambition is something Steve Smith can’t get enough of. He saw it in revolutionary viticulturist Richard Smart, who taught him to think. He saw it in Robert Mondavi and other doyens of the Napa Valley. He saw it in Sir George Fistonich, who wanted to turn a winery in receivership into the most decorated in New Zealand. And

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62:23

Vininspo! Episode 15: Tim Shand of Voyager Estate

Vininspo! podcast ·

2025/06/13

Tim Shand is not one to follow the flock. In a world where yes-men get ahead and homogeneity wins widespread acceptance, his contrarian nature hasn’t always gone down well. But an impulse to challenge conventional wisdom and see through mediocrity has made him stand out from the crowd in the long run—and earn a shot at fulfilling a prodigious potential.I got to know Tim well when he was chief winemaker at Punt Road in Victoria’s Yarra Valley. Among notable achievements there, he won the highly

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59:27

Vininspo! Episode 14: Johannes Hasselbach of Gunderloch

Vininspo! podcast ·

2025/06/06

His 19th-century forebear sold a bank to buy vineyards, so deeply did he believe in the beauty and promise of a red slab of ancient slated desert sand above the River Rhine.Make no mistake: Johannes Hasselbach is fully invested—even if there was a time when he might have wondered what on earth his great-, great, great, grandfather was thinking when he sold the family bank in 1890 to buy vineyards in Germany’s Rheinhessen.Carl Gunderloch, from whom this esteemed estate in Nackenheim takes its name,

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60:53

Vininspo! Episode 13: Anna Flowerday, Te Whare Ra

Vininspo! podcast ·

2025/05/29

From McLaren Vale to Marlborough, straight-shooting natural farmer Anna Flowerday has walked the walk with “vine Jedi” husband Jason—all the way to the title of NZ Vigneron of the Year.“Wines made with cowshit not bullshit” went the famous tagline at Te Whare Ra (TWR), the Marlborough estate Anna runs with her husband, Jason. It’s apt in so many ways: the indelicate language, the allusion to the use of manure in biodynamic viticulture and the disdain for dissimulation in the way people present their

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60:03

Vininspo! Episode 12: Christina Pickard

Vininspo! podcast ·

2025/05/23

A discernible warmth always manages to seep through Christina Pickard’s writing, and it does nothing to lessen the import of her output, which is serious, considered and searching. The affection is infectious.Christina is based in the Hudson Valley in her native New York State, and her primary role is as writer-at-large for Wine Enthusiast, where her beat is Australia, New Zealand, the UK and New York.The two of us met years ago when she was living in Perth and writing for various magazines,

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52:53

Vininspo! Episode 11: Steve Flamsteed

Vininspo! podcast ·

2025/05/16

Steve Flamsteed grew up in a full and lively household and succumbed to the pleasure of feeding people at a young age.Infected by punk energy from a young age, this lifelong devotee of good music has never lost the instinct of providing for—and feeding off—others.At the same time, a man whose curiosity led to a career-seeking quandary because cheffing, cheesemaking and wine all called with equally seductive siren voices.And though he chose wine, you feel the fusion of these things fuels his every

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