Tag Archives: Pinot Noir

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 →

I’ll have another glass of Pinot Noir, please

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What is your favorite drink?

I have written more than once about my growing interest in wine. These days it’s somewhere between a passion and obsession.

As a young adult, I had friends who were wine lovers. One of my friends got his first job as a winemaker when visiting my home. My relationship with him has opened up many opportunities to sample some great wines as well as chat about wine more generally. Then through business living in South Australia, Australia’s largest wine producer, I had a number of clients in the wine industry. All of these contributed to an interest, but it really was my PhD that investigated the non-financial characteristics of family wine businesses that moved wine to the forefront.

Through my PhD, and before that my Honours project, I had the opportunity to visit a number of wineries, both in South Australia and Australia. I also took the opportunity to meet and discuss wine with families in Italy and the USA. Their stories were fascinating. Their connection to the land, a sense of place, a connection to their community, as well as an emotional connection, led to the title of my thesis – The story is in the bottle. The title was borrowed from an interview I conducted in my Honours project with the managing director of a multigenerational family business which sadly no longer exists.

My PhD gave me access to family stories as well as, the opportunity to go back stage at a number of Australia’s family wine businesses. Some of these family wine businesses are household names with generations of history, while others are early on their journey.

The result was a desire to learn more about wine itself.

Continue reading →