How to Drink Australian

Winner John Avery Award, 2023 Andre Simon Awards 

‘The best example of this kind of book ever written.’ Wine Communicator Award judges
‘Exhaustive and intoxicating.’ Jill Dupleix, Good Weekend

‘If there is one book that anyone wanting to learn more about Australian wine should have, this is it.’ Huon Hooke, The Real Review

There has never been a more exciting time to drink Australian wine.

Centuries of innovation and determination have led to an era of exceptional achievement in Australia, yet it is a country whose output is not matched by its scholarship. Until now. How to Drink Australian brings together global experts to answer its namesake question, offering sweeping, practical, and compelling insight to all aspects of Australian wine: exhaustive analysis of every significant region, stunning and detailed maps, bespoke illustrations and artwork, individual wine recommendations, hundreds of producer profiles, a fold-out region-by-region grape table and more, all curated with a reverence for Australia’s first custodians. How to Drink Australian is the modern wine book that Australia (and a world of wine drinkers) has been waiting for.

Jane Lopes and Jonathan Ross lead this important book, with contributions from Mike Bennie, Kavita Faiella, and Hannah Day, and original maps by Martin von Wyss.

Author Biography

Jane Lopes is a sommelier, author, and importer, having worked at New York’s Eleven Madison Park, Nashville’s The Catbird Seat, Chicago’s The Violet Hour, and most recently as the wine director at Melbourne’s Attica, before passing the prestigious master sommelier exam in 2018. Lopes published her first book, Vignette: Stories of Life and Wine in 100 Bottles, in 2019. In 2020, Lopes co-founded Legend, an Australian wine imports company, with husband Jonathan Ross, to help bring the great wines they’d experienced in Australia to the US. She is now based in Nashville.

Jonathan Ross is a sommelier and wine importer whose career in restaurants has included posts at New York’s Eleven Madison Park, Oceana and Anthos, and as the beverage director for Australia’s Rockpool Dining Group. Ross passed the prestigious master sommelier exam in 2017, has curated wine offerings for Qantas Airlines, and founded the boutique wine label Micro Wines. In 2020, Ross returned to the US, eager to spread the word of the world-class wine he’d worked with in Australia, and co-founding Legend Imports in 2020 with his wife Jane Lopes.

When Mike Bennie isn’t wandering vineyards on the four corners of the globe, he is a widely published Sydney-based wine and drinks writer, journalist and presenter. Mike is one of the most internationally known commentators in this space. He is also a co-founder and partner in the landmark P&V Wine + Liquor Merchants, a shop and education space devoted to artisan fermented, brewed and distilled products, and co-director of the landmark Rootstock Sydney wine and food festival.

After 10 years abroad developing wine programs for some of the world’s most revered resorts and heading up the wine program for Hong Kong’s Press Room Group, Kavita Faiella has returned to Sydney to oversee marketing for Shaw+Smith, Tolpuddle Vineyard, MMAD Vineyard and The Other Wine Co. She is a Len Evans scholar and a graduate of the Wine Australia Future Leaders program.

Hannah Day is a writer turned cabaret artist turned sommelier turned winery hand with a fierce and unquenchable fascination for wine – drinking it, sharing it, talking about it and writing about it.
Obsessed with the geography of wine, Martin von Wyss is a cartographer and publisher of award-winning maps for National Geographic, academic and trade publishers, and his own vW Maps. Martin’s web-based World Wine Regions atlas reveals the world’s 2500 wine appellations, from Albania to Venezuela, and his Melbourne bottle shop and wine bar, Cardwell Cellars, stocks wines from regions near and far.