JOURNEY INTO WINE - Australia
New series premieres Sunday 25th May @ 2100 CET/GMT
Melbourne’s Winelands - Sunday 25th May @ 2100 CET/GMT
Inland Victoria - Sunday 1st June @ 2100 CET/GMT
The Barossa – Sunday 8th June @ 2100 CET/GMT
Adelaide’s Winelands – Sunday 15th June @ 2100 CET/GMT
Isabelle Legeron, the Travel Channel’s very own wine-wonderwoman, continues her quest to find “free-range” wine by travelling to the world’s best wineries to meet the passionate and talented winemakers who are putting themselves and where they live, into the bottle. This time she is in Australia, a country that has taken the wine world by storm. Isabelle charts its meteoric rise whilst dipping in to Australia’s unique landscapes, culture and people. She sips and spits with a Who’s Who of Aussie winemaking and leaves you knowing how to simply enjoy wine without all the fuss and nonsense. From the delicate Pinots of Melbourne and the Yarra Valley Isabelle travels inland to gold country where the reds are as big as they come. Then it’s on to the Barossa Valley in South Australia, Australian wine’s spiritual home and finally to Adelaide and Kangaroo Island. Along the way Isabelle takes everything from steam trains, balloons, Aussie films, wildlife, prospecting, food, music, to classic cars and enough great wine to grace any Frenchwoman’s cellar.
For details of the whole series visit
Click here to view Isabelle's Top Tips
Here are a few of the Wizards of Oz that she meets along the way…
EPISODE 1 - Melbourne’s Winelands
In this episode, Isabelle touches down in Melbourne, the lifestyle capital of Australia. She takes to the road for some wine and food matching in a BYO, explores the area’s offering of pinot noirs and meets some of the biggest cheeses in the wine world down under. She cooks up a barbie with a fine catch of a winemaker, gets behind the ‘wheel’ of Australia’s oldest steam train and learns what it is that is just so unique about the Australian spirit that has meant the country’s wine being catapulted to centre stage in less than a quarter century!
For more information on the wines, wineries, and activities featured in this episode check out these sites…
For the wines & winemakers…
Mac Forbes – www.macforbes.com
…for wines as delightful as the man himself; well worth getting your hands on if you can.
James Halliday – www.winecompanion.com.au
…for one of the most authoritative voices on Australian wine. You can also take a look at, and try the wines from, the winery that James started in the Yarra all those decades ago. Visit www.coldstreamhills.com.au
Tony Jordan & Domaine Chandon – www.greenpointwines.com.au
…for an exciting alternative to your every day French bubbly. Tony’s MD of Green Point (Domaine Chandon downunder) but he also makes his own wine, so look out for his label next time you’re in a wine shop – Spear Gully Vineyards!
Guill de Pury & Yeringberg - www.yeringberg.com
…for a slice of history.
Sandro Mosele & Kooyong - www.kooyong.com
…for wines as refined and dedicated as their winemaker.
Happy Viewing,
Isabelle
For the activities & places featured…
Puffing Billy – www.puffingbilly.com.au
…and if like Isabelle you fancy driving a steam train yourself, take a look at Puffing Billy’s footplate experience!
St Jeromes – www.melbournepubs.com
…for a groovy Melbournian hangout down a laneway.
The Botanical – www.thebotanical.com.au
…for a nice nibble at a BYO.
Global ballooning – www.globalballooning.com.au
…for a birdseye view of the winelands or indeed of Melbourne itself!
Stay tuned next month to find out what happens to Isabelle down under as she continues her ‘Journey into Wine – Australia’ in…
EPISODE 2 - Inland Victoria
Isabelle goes bush, abandons Melbourne and heads inland to Victoria’s dry dusty interior. On her way she learns to throw a boomerang with an Aboriginal Elder, unearths indigenous delights when she meets one of Australia’s most famous filmmakers, and pays a visit to a winemaker called Duck. She tastes her way through the changes and finds out just how much the Victorian wine industry owes to gold.
EPISODE 3 - The Barossa
This episode sees Isabelle journeying to the spiritual home of Australia’s signature grape variety – Shiraz. Settled by German refugees in the 1800s, Isabelle discovers a heritage that is still very much alive today: wursts of every shape and size and, funnily enough, some of Australia’s best Riesling! She pays a visit to the home of Russell Crowe’s favourite vino, tries a tipple that is over one hundred years old and sees for herself how important the issue of water is to the Australia of today and tomorrow.
EPISODE 4 - Adelaide’s Winelands
Isabelle ends the series in the capital of South Australia, Australia’s Wine State, where meets some of the founding fathers of modern Australian winemaking. In this episode Isabelle discovers the importance that the medical profession has had on Australia’s wine heritage, meets a wacky winemaking visionary and travels to one of Australia’s most remote and savagely beautiful islands, where grapes rub shoulders with colonies of sea lions, wallabies, and the real Aussie outdoors.
The production team of ’Journey into Wine – Australia’ would like to thank, in alphabetical order, the following musicians for their contributions:
John O’Dea and his songs of the outback at Portee Station – www.johnodea.com.au
David Rowan and his button accordion, from the Tooboorac Hotel – www.heathcote.org.au
The Tanunda Liedertafel and their choral music http://www.alt1858.org/History/history_en.htm
John Parkham and his didgeridoo, from Tandanya, the National Aboriginal Cultural Institute – www.tandanya.com.au
Eddie Peters and his Torres Strait Island vocals, from Tandanya, the National Aboriginal Cultural Institute – www.tandanya.com.au
If you fancy finding out more about wine generally visit Isabelle @ www.isabellelegeron.com or at www.wine-lab.com