Andrew Caillard MW on his wine opus, The Australian Ark

Drinks Adventures - Wine, beer, whisky, gin & more with James Atkinson

We’re joined again this episode by Andrew Caillard MW, one of Australia’s leading authorities on wine.

Andrew was last on the show in November 2020 discussing the debut of two Australian wines on the prestigious international wine marketplace, La Place de Bordeaux.

This time Andrew joins us to discuss his magnum opus, The Australian Ark, the most extensive history of the Australian wine industry ever written.

First up, Andrew and I discuss the challenges involved with getting a book of this scale and ambition off the ground.

We then explore just a handful of the individuals and events that have shaped the wine industry as told by Andrew in The Australian Ark, such as:

• Who was the real father of Australian wine – it’s not James Busby as I previously thought;
• How colonial wine evolved from a cottage industry into a booming export industry spearheaded by the Emu brand of Australian burgundy in the late 1800s; and
• The Australian Wine Canon – Andrew’s list of the most influential Australian wines of all time, starting with the Rosehill Red Wine produced in Parramatta in 1792.

Trigger warning: This episode which includes some pretty confronting discussion about the displacement of First Nations people that sadly occurred as part of this story, and which Andrew doesn’t shy away from in his book.

I'd like to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which this podcast is produced – the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation – and pay my respects to their Elders past and present.