Jeremy Oliver

About

He wouldn't tell you this himself, Jeremy Oliver is one of Australia's foremost wine writers and presenters and the country's most influential wine presence throughout Asia. He is a widely read and fully independent Australian wine commentator whose words are published in several countries. In late 2005 he was named the inaugural Wine Writer of the Year by the widely circulated Australian Wine Selector magazine. With the recent publication of Enjoying Wine with Jeremy in Mandarin, Jeremy became the first western wine critic to create and publish a book in China especially for the Chinese audience.

Best known for his best-selling guidebook, The Australian Wine Annual, Jeremy is a polished wine presenter and a popular host of corporate and wine-related events around the world. You'll never wonder what Jeremy's thinking; his style is unambiguous and to the point. He's not associated with any wine producer or distributor, so he believes he can say what he wants to. And he does.

Now in his twenty-sixth year as a professional wine critic, Jeremy Oliver has authored twenty-two books, written for dozens of publications in Australia, the UK, the US, Russia, Korea, Singapore, Japan and China, and has made hundreds of appearances on radio and television. He is deeply committed to Australian wine, but is not afraid to be critical of it when he believes the occasion demands.

Jeremy is actively involved in sport, mainly through his association with The Melbourne Cricket Club and the 49ers, a social team largely comprising a group of winemakers and musicians who ought to know better. He plays regularly for the MCC's XXIX Club and during 2001-2002 dismissed former star Test batsman Dean Jones for a duck on the MCG. Not that he's making a big thing out of it. He's also the wine consultant to the MCC.

Born in late 1961 at Ballarat, Victoria, Jeremy Oliver was educated in Australia and England, where he spent several years as a child. He attributes much of his love for wine to his father's enthusiasm and attitude towards it and by the time he completed a Bachelor of Agricultural Science at the University of Melbourne, he had decided to find a career with wine. After a year in Coonawarra, during which he worked firstly at Lindemans and then at Katnook Estate, he studied winemaking at Roseworthy College as a postgraduate in 1984.

Later that year he published his first book, Thirst For Knowledge, in doing so becoming the youngest-ever published wine author in the world. A light-hearted but informative guide, it was fully updated two years later as More Thirst for Knowledge. By this time, Jeremy Oliver was running his own wine courses and contributing to a range of publications including The Age in Melbourne, for whom he wrote features and reviewed new releases. Shortly afterwards he released a wine biography of Len Evans entitled Evans on Earth.

Jeremy Oliver then released a series of three books entitled The Australian Wine Handbook, a guidebook rating both current and back vintages of Australia's most important wines. This concept served as the inspiration for Jeremy Oliver's present releases of The Australian Wine Annual, first published in 1997. Since then, it has become one of the most influential and eagerly anticipated books on Australian wine, featuring his sought-after tasting notes, ratings and commentary. It is now in its fourteenth edition.

Today Jeremy Oliver works internationally in an ambassadorial capacity for Australian wine, having forged close relationships with Austrade and the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation. He has hosted events from New York to Beijing as well as most of the leading wine events in Australia.

Jeremy Oliver believes that his technical background, the regular opportunities he enjoys to fine-tune his palate with the best in the business, his work ethic (he tastes many thousands of wines each year) and his constantly renewed enthusiasm for wine will create many future opportunities to contribute to the understanding and enjoyment of wine.

He still dreams of playing a golf course (any golf course) the way its architect intended and at the age of 48 his mood swings are still closely linked to the fortunes of the Essendon Football Club and the Australian Test Cricket team. His secret fantasy is to commentate on cricket for the BBC. Jeremy lives in Melbourne with his wife, Jennifer, his son, Benjamin, his dog, Georgia, his cat, Bertie and a large and expanding adopted family of possums.