“Sod the wine, I want to suck on the writing. This man White is an instinctive writer, bloody rare to find one who actually pulls it off, as in still gets a meaning across with concision. Sharp arbitrage of speed and risk, closest thing I can think of to Cicero’s ‘motus continuum animi.’

Probably takes a drink or two to connect like that: he literally paints his senses on the page.”


DBC Pierre (Vernon God Little, Ludmila’s Broken English, Lights Out In Wonderland ... Winner: Booker prize; Whitbread prize; Bollinger Wodehouse Everyman prize; James Joyce Award from the Literary & Historical Society of University College Dublin)


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13 May 2017

WENDOUREE: MILTON INTERVIEWS BRADY

Vintage at Wendouree: Milton Wordley has let me loot his file of Wendouree photographs to promote his remarkable interview with winemaker Tony Brady. We went up there recently with Dr Bob de Bellevue and some other winelovin friends from New Orleans. This is Dr Bob on the Brady vineyard tour - 70+ year-olds out in the midday sun:




An image I've never before seen captured: a photograph of the Wendouree equilateral triangle of winemaking: Stephen George, Lita Liberman and Tony Brady. As Tony told Milton: "I'’m the arms and legs … Stephen’s the palate and Lita’s the brains" ... I can promise you the boundaries are not quite so sharp ... all  photos©Milton Wordley ...  And there we were having sandwiches and tea:

On this same veranda: Max Liberman  had purchased Wendouree by the writing of this unattributed review in Winemakers of the Clare Valley (Decathalon, Melbourne 1978), but Tony and Lita had yet to claim or gain any credit:


When people ask me which is my favourite winery on Earth, a frequent query, my response has always been thus: "If you're gonna buy me one, may I please have Wendouree?" 

Trusting all the gods, not to mention the fierce Brady,  forgive such hubris!

photos©Milton Wordley ... click here for my report of the death of Max Liberman and Mick Knappstein's speech at the Wendouree 100th Vintage celebration; thanks to Tim White.

I made the photo below when Tony had completed the new toilet block beside the winery. He built a retreat chamber within it, adjacent to the cubicles. It has a meditation and study bench, a firm cot and a system of simply adjustable eaves vents to make possible a precise management of the eucalypt-heavy zephyrs. He made these doors from old wine vats. Brady has a fine eye for design and purpose, and he's a craftsman of a rare degree. He also does fine needlepoint embroidery. I bow.

 

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