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 →