Wine Panel
Our expert Wine Panel is made up of representatives from our specialist wine stores and well known wine industry personalities. Our panel is presented with hundreds of wines and meets fortnightly to taste and debate the latest releases. They have such a combined golden palate they regularly identify award show winners before the judging circuit does and their reviews are highly anticipated. Read On the Vine catalogue
Five of the best
It is a laborious process selecting the best wines, writes Olga de Moeller. Read the rest of the article from the Fresh section of The West Australian.
Members of the Panel include:
Rod Properjohn
Rod began in the wine industry 35 years ago as a Wine Advisory Officer for the Wine Industry Association of WA and gravitated from there into lecturing at the Association’s Wine Education Centre, in which he is still involved. He also ran wine classes for Technical and Further Education. He was a wine columnist for the Western Mail and Daily News papers and later on with the magazines West Coast, Scoop, WineState, Spice, Menu and Cravings. He is also a Regional Wine Show judge and the writer of our newsletter.
Steve Perry
Steve has been expertly advising and educating Perth’s western suburbs in wine since 1985. He was a director of legendary Cottesloe Wine Store - John Coppins until 1997 and now leads the team at fine wine store- Swanbourne Liquor Barons. He has travelled extensively around the wine-growing regions of Australia and NZ and has been the Chairman of the Panel for over 10 Years.
Stef Biagi
Since joining the wine trade 12 years ago Stef has been part of the management team for six fine wine stores in WA (including two Liquor Barons stores), and has a loyal customer base who track him down for recommendations. He has completed all of the wine courses at the Wine Education Centre and furthered his education by regularly exploring Australia's wine regions. He most enjoys finding gems from boutique vineyards and is responsible for sourcing, cataloguing and preparing all wine for the panel tastings.
Peter Bradbeer
Peter has been in the wine industry for over 30 years, always tasting and assessing wines for sale and for his own drinking. He has been Wine Show judging and consulting to a major Australian wine company. Being on other professional wine panels gives him a broad view of what is out there, but it is always changing. Peter’s view is you never stop learning.
Paul (Ed) Edwards
Ed joined the wine trade in 1998 and has managed fine wine stores in London, Sydney and Perth. He led Hyde Park Cellars to win the NSW Liquor Store of the year Award in 2001 before moving to the historic cellars ‘Averys of Bristol’, to study for the WSET (Wine & Spirits Education Trust) diploma which he passed in 2005. In 2008 Ed was the WA representative in the national final of the prestigious, Negociants ‘Working with Wine’ Fellowship.
Anthony Reynolds
Anthony is a qualified Winemaker that brings much technical winemaking knowledge to the panel. He has worked both as a viticulturalist and winemaker for over ten years, predominantly in the Margaret River Wine Region. Anthony has also worked and/or travelled through many of the worlds leading winemaking areas including France, Germany, Italy and South Africa. A recent city change has seen Anthony move back to Perth as the owner and manager of Liquor Barons Dalkeith.
Basil Giglia
Basil has been involved in the liquor industry since 1983. Besides a good drop of wine, he can not pass up a cold beer, a good malt whisky or a silky fortified. Basil enjoys selecting wines to compliment the diverse range of foods on offer today. What more is there? Good food, good wine and stimulating company and enjoying life.
Michael Dickson
For Michael wine started as an interest, then became a vocation and after 20 years in the wine industry as both a retailer and wholesaler, remains a passion. What keeps that passion alive is the increasing range of new and interesting wines from grape varieties and regions around the world that are becoming available to us.
Paul McArdle
Paul is currently the CEO for Fonty’s Pool winery in Pemberton. He has been the wine consultant for ‘Must’ wine bar/restaurant in Perth (since 2004). Paul is regularly involved in both trade and consumer wine education and is one of the few people in WA to have passed the international “Masters of Wine” tasting exam. .