Australian Wine: The story is in the bottle

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A good bottle of Australian wine is about more than just what’s in the bottle. It’s about the people who made it, the vineyard itself, the wine region, often the family behind it, and often the stories we, as drinkers, bring to the wine. 

In a non-academic sense, this was the basis of my PhD, where I looked at what lay behind the wine, particularly the emotional connection that Australian wine families had with their land, their winery, and the wine they produced. I could bore you with a detailed academic explanation of socioemotional wealth, but instead here is a link to my PhD.

My research showed that for these families there was so much more to the wine than its economic value. There was a deep emotional connection to the land itself, a sense of place and so much more.  Often these family members reflected that their own family’s story was being told through the bottle. They saw the wine as a continuation of their own family story.

The story is in the bottle

A couple of anecdotes always spring to mind for me here.

One is of a family member who loved bringing out a bottle of the family wine at dinner. Their branch of the family was quite distant from the family members who ran the winery, but the wine was their connection to a family story that had a more than 100-year history.  Their story was in the bottle, as a member of the family working in the wine business said.

Another is a family member who works overseas and is delighted that the family’s wine is often used at Board Room events. That bottle of wine lets them enjoy the family’s story, even though they are thousands of kilometres from the winery. Continue reading →

The red on my spreadsheet- what our renovation taught me about renovation budgets

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It’s a year since practical completion of the renovation of our beach house. It’s just the garden to go now.

To use a much-overused term, it was quite a journey. What started as musing about ways to sort out our dreaded spiral staircase over a steak in the Penola is now the finished article.

Our architect’s plans were put through the mill by my favourite person and me. While costs were relevant, they were not the driving factor through the design phase. The focus was on getting rid of the spiral staircase and coming up with a design that compensated for the loss of space that would result. However, it didn’t stop there! We quickly moved on to a new kitchen, relocation of the laundry, necessary because of the stairs, an update of the mezzanine to give us more space and extra decking. And I wonder why the costs blew out!

The mezzanine

It was about two years from when we first met our architect until the builder started on our renovation. We waxed and waned over her design, but as each decision was made we very much followed her lead. Her attention to detail in putting my favourite person’s ideas into place served us well. Our builder commented more than once that there was so much detail in her plans. Continue reading →

Our renovation – My home gym

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Updating my home gym at our beach house was an important aspect of our renovation. In recent years fitness has become in my life. It wasn’t something I originally set out to make a major part of my routine. I’ve always done some form of excercise, but I don’t think it was truly part of my life, I just fitted it in.

That all changed  with a rather unflattering realisation while changing a car tyre. I went to get up from the footpath and struggled to keep my balance.

Something  wasn’t right. I was too young for this and something needed to change. I’d ridden bikes for years and, as I said earlier, I always considered myself reasonably active, but I wasn’t actually getting any fitter. In fact, my weight was gradually going up. This was even after I retired and I was no longer entertaining a few times a week. I was however not really watching my diet and I was having a glass of wine most nights. I was also struggling to keep up with my riding group.

Eventually my doctor made the fairly obvious observation that I could probably afford to shed a few kilos.

It was time to do something about it.

Continue reading →

Another Reflection

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If we were having a coffee I’d be telling you that as I looked at recent posts, that reflections have been somewhat of a common theme. So here is another.

My blog, and how it has evolved across its life. It very much started as a part of my retirement project or as I referred to it ‘What’s Next’. That was more than 10 years ago. Across that period I’ve had periods where I posted regularly and then had gaps. Over the last couple of years those gaps have been longer and my desire to post has waned somewhat.

Once again, I wondered if I would continue it. This time, when I got my web hosting bill. I nearly fell off my chair!  The charge had gone through without me getting notice that it was about to renew. It was my fault, as I hadn’t notified the hosting service that the email attached to the account was no longer valid.

I wondered if it was worth the money to continue. Perhaps my blog had served its purpose. I wasn’t sure. In the end, after a chat with the hosting service, I found a suitable hosting plan that better matched how I view my blog. I’m now on a new plan and have committed to a 5-year service.

But as I discussed why I had my blog with my favourite person, I started to think about how I will use it in the future. So many of the posts in the past were about travel, but we are doing less of that now that we delight in spending time with our grandchildren. Our travel is domestic and shorter, but as my favourite person said, there is much to write about these trips.

I also blogged about my journey through my PhD which was very much a ‘What’s Next, project. I completed it around three years ago. It’s a bound book on my bookshelf. I still use what I learnt in the few consulting projects I have but I’m not sure if that is a topic for this blog .

Then there are the general reflections on wine, music, and the world. I realised, as I thought about it, that I have a number of posts on songs that look at the songs in a more reflective tone, e.g.  I just want ot enjoy their music – A reflection on Bob Dylan. Perhaps that a direction for future posts?

So with my hosting service renewed, I have whet my blogging appetite with a new motivation to keep on posting!