500 pages and we still want to carry it everywhere. This is a book for wine nerds and newbies alike – we ask co-author Jane Lopes how she did it.
People often tell Jane Lopes they know nothing about wine, but the American sommelier, author and importer of Australian wine can relate. And this is someone who’s studied wine for years – she’s even one of just 300-odd people in the world who’s ever passed the gruelling Master Sommelier exams (but that’s a whole other story for another day). “No one does – we’re all just trying to figure it out!” Jane says. “The world of wine is constantly growing and evolving, so we have to accept that we’re never going to know all there is to know. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find something you like to drink, and I think that’s what most people should be concerned about!”
That’s also a big part of what Jane hopes to achieve with her new book, How to Drink Australian, which she co-wrote with her husband, fellow American sommelier and business partner Jonathan Ross, and a culturally wired-in team of Aussie editors and contributors. These include respected local experts such as Mike Bennie, Kavita Faiella and Hannah Day. The 500-page book covers Australia’s key wine regions, flagship varieties, styles, producers to know and developments, complete with detailed maps and other insights. It also taps into the significance of First Nations people within the context of wine; the book even opens with an Acknowledgement of Country, a brief history pre- and post-colonisation, and an overview of the Indigenous approach to land care.
There are plenty of books on wine, and new titles come out all the time, but it’s safe to say this one is different. For starters, it looks like something you want to show off on your coffee table, all brightly coloured and packed with stunning illustrations by Robin Cowcher (she collaborated with Jane on her first book, Vignette: Stories of Life & Wine in 100 Bottles – buy it, read it, thank us later). It’s also designed so you can pick it up and read it in bits over time, or study it like the outrageous masterwork it is. But that’s not to suggest it’s a textbook that feels like homework or that it’s solely for wine nerds – this is an engaging, contemporary book that shares all the stories behind Australian wine in a super-accessible way. It makes you want to keep reading.
If you’re newer to wine, the final “Hubbub” section of each chapter is especially for you. “The idea was to look at what’s going on in each region – what people are excited about, what they’re worried about, the current events and what people are talking about,” Jane says. “If you’re going to read just one part, that’s the one because that’s so much more important than being able to rattle off all the soil types. These are the things that help people get invested and involved in a region, and it’s a great entry point instead of being intimidated by all the grapes and histories and styles and numbers.”
So, how did two Americans come to create one of the most exhaustive books ever produced on Australian wine? It’s something that surprises even Jane. “If you’d told me in 2016, before Australia was even on the docket, that I’d be importing Australian wine and writing an Australian wine book, I would’ve been like ‘What?!’” Jane laughs. The top sommeliers moved here in 2017 to take on Beverage Director roles – Jane at Melbourne’s coveted Attica, Jonathan at Rockpool Bar & Grill. Despite both going through the Master Sommelier exam process and long studying the wine world, they quickly realised they knew very little about Australian wine, and so began a deep dive – and a new passion and direction. They have since returned to the US and established their Aussie wine import business, Legend, based in Nashville.
Jane knows people might baulk at a book about Australian wine being written by a couple of Americans, but it’s a passion project that aims to fill a gap. “It’s not like we’re claiming to be the world’s foremost experts on Australian wine – we didn’t just live there for three years and all of a sudden know everything there is to know. That’s why it was important for us to have Australian collaborators,” Jane says. “We just felt like there were so many books when we were coming up as somms that we could read to get really deep and nerdy about places like Barolo or Champagne or the northern Rhone, but there wasn’t that for Australia, so we thought we’d write one! This is a modern wine book for both the professional and the enthusiast, and our goal is for the scholarship on Australian wine to match the quality of the wines.”
The “world-class” quality and diversity of Australia’s wines was a huge revelation for the couple on arrival. Grenache was one of the biggest surprises for Jane, who’s excited by the rise in regional expressions and elegant styles. “They’re really beautiful, and I think grenache has the potential to be a real calling card for Australia,” she says. Our cool-climate shiraz also made her fall in love with the variety. “I was not a syrah drinker, but then I went to Australia and felt like I hadn’t tasted any of those wines. It made me fall in love with the grape in a way that French syrah hadn’t. It’s so exciting to get all of the beautiful varietal syrah aromatics, but the palates are a little bit softer, more supple and more drinkable.”
It’s this high drinkability factor that Jane believes gives Australian wine a real edge over so many other winemaking nations. “There’s often a sentiment that the best things should be a little difficult, like great art or literature. And if you look at some of the great wines of the world objectively, they’re not the easiest wines to drink. I think Australia is able to do both. You get these wines that are truly complex and world-class, but they’re also really drinkable, and I think that’s an amazing thing,” she says.
At Legend, Jane and Jonathan have 33 Aussie producers in their portfolio, and the wines are sold in 25 states. The goal was always to work with top Australian brands that hadn’t been available in the US before. This involves a lot of travel to host tastings, educate hospitality teams and wine lovers, and generally spread the word because the demand for Australian wine in the US is not there – yet. “We’re building up ambassadors, so when people walk into a restaurant or retail shop, we want them to say, ‘You like chardonnay? Have you had an Australian chardonnay?’ We want them to put it on by the glass or in their pairings and convert people one at a time. Our goal is so that in 10 to 15 years, people walk in and ask for the Australian pinot section.”
This new book will inevitably help deliver this long-term vision, so Jane and Jonathan are excited to get it out into the world – for readers here as well as the US and beyond. That meant setting the book out by region was a key strategy. “You don’t generalise about French wine; you talk about all these different regions and I think that’s really important. We need to start having these conversations that really break up Australia into its parts,” Jane says.
The good news is that wherever they pour these wines in the US, people love them. “They think they’re absolutely delicious,” Jane says. Now they can learn all about them, too. While Jane acknowledges that no single book can ever capture everything about Australian wine, it’s been a true labour of love for everyone involved and it taps into a dynamic moment for the industry. “One of our taglines is ‘There’s never been a more exciting time to drink Australian wine’ and I really believe that,” she says. “This is definitely a thick, serious book, and it can be a research book, but it can also be for when you’re going to Orange and want to know what’s going on there. We wanted to make it accessible if you don’t want to go super deep, but we’re trying to do both.”
