The Cellar Door Podcast

Darren Rathbone is the CEO and head Wine Maker in charge of the Rathbone Group, a family run enterprise responsible for Victoria’s Mount Langi Ghiran and Yering Station and Xanadu in Margaret River, WA. The Rathbone Group entered the Chinese market in around 2007, saw its rise and saw its collapse with the imposition of the Chinese tariffs. Now that the tariffs have been lifted t

Giles Cooke MW is one of the industry leaders behind the sensational wave of new age Grenache sweeping across the McLaren vale and Barossa. He also brings bucketloads of perspective given his wealth of industry background developed in the European market - not to mention the big initials MW next to his name. Giles is all about excitement and innovation and doing what it takes to es

This is my first episode recorded since arriving in Santa Barbara, and I couldn’t think of a better way to start than by getting the Santa Barbara story, plus the story of a winery that forms part of Californian history. Who better to share the story than one of the legends of the Santa Barbara wine scene, Wes Hagen. A huge thanks to Wes for joining me. Support the Show.

There is nothing as important as going back to basics, so I called on wine rockstar Doug Neal for some education – on the topic of oak and its role in the wine world. As always, its difficult to be comprehensive, especially when you’re on the clock, but the passionate teacher in Doug came out and I found his class very insightful. A huge thanks to Doug for joining me. Support t

It’s important to tie off loose ends, so I sat down with Jeremy Oliver a second time to cap off the themes in his recently release paper to the wine industry. We discussed China’s decision to lift the tariffs on Australian wine imports, the difficulties posed where a duopoly controls a consumer market and we discussed some of the feedback from our first chat. As always - fun an

For more than three decades, Huon Hooke has dedicated his pen to the world of wine. Beginning his career as a journalist in the traditional print media, Huon has witnessed the evolution of wine reviewing and criticism from the era of the print media to the digital age and now the uncharted territory of social media. Huon generously shared his insights on the Real Review's work, the

Andrew Burchell's vision is to put Mount Gambier on the national and global radar as a premium producing wine region. He has the passion, the love of wine and viticulture, and Mt Gambier provides the perfect conditions, including – wait for it – a volcano – yes Andrew crafts wines in the foothills of Australia’s only inactive volcano which is predicted to erupt in the next

Brandon Farrell travels the world tasting the world’s finest wines so that he can present them at events and as part of specially curated lists at dinners put on through his company the Brilliant Wine Co. Brandon’s travels recently brought him to Australia’s sunny shores. His intentions had originally been to get some sun and enjoy the surf, but when his network put him in to

The stars are aligning for Stephen Cook of Eisenstone Wines. Stephen modelled his project at Eisenstone on the production of small batch Barossa Shiraz, where success would follow Stephen’s attention to detail and captivating his audience with the resulting quality wines. Since I last spoke with Stephen, his range has grown to 12 subregional Barossa Shiraz expressions, all which

Brenden Robnik is a hard-working tradie by day, but when the sun goes down and he downs tools he morphs into the Wine Animal – who’s passion for wine and desire to share knows no limits. It doesn’t take long talking to the Wine Animal for his passion to shine through – but what is just as, if not more captivating, than the Wine Animal’s passion – is the story behind it.