Podcast – Interview with Liane Morris

What a great new year’s episode! Ute and Liane talk about Hunter Valley, Australia, the oldest wine region, which is where Liane is located. Liane is an experienced writer with many talents and a love for wine. They also discussed drinking and limiting alcohol, and get a little carried away about midlife and its transformative time for women. Tune in!

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Full episode transcript:

Ute: Happy New Year and welcome back to the Thru the Grapewine podcast. I am your host, Ute Mitchell. I hope you all had a great New Year’s Eve with people you love. Of course, I am very curious to hear what was your favorite beverage New Year’s Eve! What was your beverage of choice for New Year’s Eve? So hop into the show notes for our email address and send us a message. We’d love to hear from you.

As always, we love great ratings. So if you are listening on a platform that allows you to rate our podcast, we love stars, ideally five of them. So share the love! And share it with a friend or family member ; someone that you think would like our podcast. Again, we love when you share the love!!

Also, we created a handy dandy wine pairing quick guide that you can find in the show notes as well. This guide lists some of the most popular wines available in the United States and most other parts of the world, and how to pair them with food. It’s not a comprehensive list by any means, but it is a great PDF to have on your phone that you can use for future reference when you’re out and about at a restaurant…. you’re not entirely sure “what do I drink with the food that I am eating”, and you can just pop that out and look it up! Or, of course, you can print it out and keep it in the kitchen for when you do your meal planning.

Of course there’s also our topic request form in case you want us to talk about something in particular. Or if you know of a women we have to feature or interview!

Now for our interview for today, this was actually recorded in December, which is why we mentioned the holidays. But I think it is such a great first episode for the new year as we’ll be talking a little bit about moderating alcohol intake and how you can go about that. I hope you enjoy the show. And with that, let’s go.

All right, so we are here with Liane Morris. She’s a writer based in New Castle… what is, what is NSW? See, I’m already asking my first question.

Liane Morris: New South Wales.

Ute: Oh, New South Wales, Australia. Maybe I should know this. You know, maybe I’ll already embarrass myself in the first sentence. So anyway, you cover the Hunter Valley wineries, restaurants and tourism, tourism destinations. You interview local winemakers and you write feature articles on the latest industry happenings within Australia’s oldest wine growing region. You’re a freelance copywriter and a publicist. So it sounds like you have your plate full and I very much love to know a little bit more about yourself. Tell me about you. You cover the wineries, but you are quite a very versatile writer. How did you get started?

Liane Morris: Okay, so thanks for having me, Ute. My background is in arts and entertainment marketing, so I worked in Sydney and Canberra in that sort of area working. Theater and orchestras and performing arts and that sort of thing.

Then after having children, I moved back to my hometown of Newcastle and I couldn’t get work in my field. . I took a, I took a job as a copywriter and realized that I kind of had a talent for it. It came fairly easy. I studied, went back to school and studied the craft of writing and dabbled in writing fiction for children.

Ute: Oh!

Liane Morris: Yeah.

Ute: Nice.

Liane Morris: And then with my marketing background, freelancing as a business copywriter sort of came pretty naturally. Then eventually I found my way into the features writing for local magazines, two of which are based here in the Hunter Valley. And as you’ve already mentioned, we are Australia’s oldest wine growing country.

And the two magazines are Your Hunter Valley magazine and Wine and Dine magazine. So I interview a lot of winemakers and vineyard owners. Writing up feature stories and articles on what’s happening and what tourism activities are available. And I’m also heavily involved in our local Newcastle Fringe Festival and I work as an arts publicist, so that’s kind of me.

Ute: So that sounds like a full-time job. You’re doing this full-time, correct?

Liane Morris: Oh, yeah. Yeah. With all my bits it, it all adds up to full-time. Plus I sing in a choir.

Ute: Oh, that’s amazing. I’ve been wanting to sing in a choir for a really long time. I used to do a fair amount of singing and. And then it just never really worked out with work and, you know, and then I was homeschooling my kids and I felt like I couldn’t be away. And anyway, different story!

How old are your kids, if I may ask?

Liane Morris: I have two boys, 15 and 16.

Ute: Okay. So just on the verge of being an empty nester.

Liane Morris: Oh yeah… I’m not actually looking forward to it. My husband can’t wait. But I’m not looking forward to it.

Ute: You know, it’s actually, it’s actually kind of cool now that it’s happened to me and I’m starting to really get used to it. It’s actually kind of cool, but maybe we’ll talk about that later. So, okay. So of all the topics that you do write about, which is obviously a lot, what is your very favorite? What do you keep going back to?

Liane Morris: Well, it’s actually not a topic, so I love the variety in my work. I’m very easily bored. So, I love the fact that one day I can be writing about wine and restaurants. Then I can be writing about real estate or seafood or professional organizers or arts events. And so it’s not really a topic or even an industry. It’s more the story because I’m a storyteller at heart. And I like, I like writing blogs or about pages on websites or feature articles. I suppose I like to discover the inspiration and history of people, to share what makes ’em tick and what their message is to the world. and that kind of inspires me. And you know, a lot of my interviews I get quite inspired by, you know, it’s amazing to hear success stories and how people have, you know, achieved what they’ve achieved.

Ute: Oh, for sure. Yeah. That sounds amazing. Yeah, I checked out your website. It’s very interesting and we’re gonna definitely have that down in the show notes for listeners to check out. So, but you do live in Hunter Valley and I know a little bit about it, but many of our listeners don’t. So tell me about this region, the climate, and the vegetarian, and is it hilly and flat? You know, how are the vineyards located on the hills?

Liane Morris: Okay. Right, so I live… it’s two hours. I live on the coast, two hours north of Sydney, and a lot of people know Sydney. The climate is considered moderate and they often say that it’s similar to the Mediterranean. Although there is a hint of the subtropics here as well.

It gets hot in summer and… I had to look this, I had to look up, cuz we talk in Celsius and you guys talk in Fahrenheit, so I had to look it up. So typically our summer days might be around about 86 degrees Fahrenheit and we call cold in winter about 40 degrees Fahrenheit at nighttime, right? But it doesn’t really snow here.

We’ve mentioned that it’s the oldest wine growing region in Australia with the first vines planted in the 1820s. It’s considered a hot and wet wine region. Although drought is not uncommon, most of the rain falls in summer, which has an effect on the wine making. We’ve also experienced severe bush fires and floods in recent years.

That, I know had a significant impact on the local wine industry. There are mountains in the valley. We had the Broken Back [Range] mountains and national parks on sort of all sides. And the proximity of the Pacific Ocean draws cooler air into the area, again, affecting the wine. So the main industries here are like coal mining, agriculture, viticulture.

There are about 150 wineries here, tourism, horse breeding, dairy farming, beef cattle. And as you drive through it, it’s mostly rural farmland. So I think that kind of gives you the rundown.

Ute: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I’ve definitely seen pictures of it, and I do hope to someday travel to Australia. It’s, it’s a bit of a trip from, from the west coast of the United States.

Liane Morris: Yeah, it, it is. But you know, like when Australians travel, when we travel, we have to, you know, we, when we go to Europe, it takes us a whole day, like a 24 hour flight, you know?

Ute: Yeah. No matter where you go, it’s a far, it’s a far trip.

Liane Morris: That’s right. That’s right. You have to make it worth your while. You have to make sure you come with lots of time to.

Ute: Sure. Yeah. You know, and working on my own and doing my own thing, running my business, I can always kinda, I mean, I can record a podcast anywhere. And I can, I could totally just, you know, vacation in Hunter Valley and talk about wine there.

Liane Morris: Absolutely. Come on down.

Ute: Right? I do want to, I’d absolutely love to. Maybe I’ll, I’ll combine and with a trip to Germany. My family’s in Germany, so I could just go there for a week and adjust and then do another trip to Australia.

Liane Morris: Yeah, and it would have to be tax deductible.

Ute: Exactly.

Liane Morris: You gotta love that .

Ute: I know. Maybe I could even fly business class. Oh, that would be so amazing.

All right. What are some of the most famous wines from Hunter Valley? And what would you say is your favorite?

Liane Morris: Haha, okay. So the Hunter Valley’s most iconic wine would have to be Semillon. It’s frequently recognized globally as producing the best in the world. And it also has a good reputation for Shiraz, Chardonnay, and Verdelho. Tyrrell’s have some of the oldest Chardonnay vines in the world planted in 1908. I was actually a bit surprised by that date, actually, but and yeah. Famous brands or labels, obviously Tyrrell’s would have to be right up there. They have that one Semillon 2016 took out Best in Show at the Decanter World Wine Awards with 97 points. And in the same awards, they also took out a bronze for their Chardonnay and a silver for their Steven’s Single Vineyard Semillon.

Other notables are the Graveyard Shiraz from Brokenwood. The Lake Shiraz from Audrey Wilkinson, Breaking Ground Albarino from Margan Wines, and the Vat 9 Shiraz by Tyrrell’s. There’s actually like so many I can’t…I personally… I’m not sure I’ve actually got a favorite wine, but I do prefer white wines. I know. I know you’re a red girl, but I’m a white girl. In terms of my wine tastes, but you can’t go past… almost any Hunter Valley Semillon is amazing to drink. I’ve been doing some work at a small boutique winery called Briar Ridge. And their single vineyard Briar Hill Semillon is a total winner and has recently won some amazing awards.

I like Verdelho, and I have to admit that New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs are pretty nice too. I like dry wine, nothing too sweet. But at the moment I’m super keen on low alcohol options. And I’ve recently discovered a nice little local white wine from a winery called Tamburlaine Organic Wines and they do something called the half cut. They call it half cut, and it’s a Piquette, which is just 5% alcohol. So it’s got a little tiny little bit of fizz about it. And I think that actually makes the lower alcohol content work better in terms of flavor.

Ute: Yeah.

Liane Morris: It’s made from Sauvignon Blanc grapes. And they’re like, you know, most of the zero to low alcohol wines still have that juice quality about them.

Ute: Yeah.

Liane Morris: But that little, it’s that, that little bit of fizz actually gets rid of that, which is really nice. So I’ve just placed an order actually for my Christmas, my Christmas wine drinking, so.

Ute: Oh, nice.

Liane Morris: Yes. Cause I’m on a bit of a health kick, so. There you go.

Ute: Yeah, and as a matter of fact, it’s, that’s so great. What a great segue because I know that you do have a great weight loss journey behind you that you talk about on your blog. Part of this was to limit your drinking, but I know that you do still indulge. So can you tell me what that looks like? How often do you drink? Is it weekly, monthly? You know how? How do you decide that?

Liane Morris: Okay, so I was on a weight loss journey and I’ve lost 55 pounds when I realized that my drinking habit was preventing me from losing weight. So I went on a 30 day alcohol free challenge with a lady called, Annie Grace [who wrote] This Naked Mind and I learned so much stuff that just kind of blew my mind, which I’m not gonna go into here.

But nevertheless, I went from drinking basically a bottle of wine most nights, to only drinking on about two occasions per month.

Ute: Uh huh.

Liane Morris: So a lot of people who are on the sobriety journey opt to give up completely. And I didn’t wanna do that because I’d just given up all or nothing thinking around food. And I didn’t, I didn’t wanna replace it with all or nothing thinking around alcohol. Because if one thing I had learned is that it’s completely unsustainable. And I find it so sad that people who are on that sobriety journey and they say, oh, I’m 300 days alcohol free… but then they slip and they might just drink one night, and then for them that’s a failure.

But it’s not! Like, what about the 300 days you didn’t drink? You know, the one day that you did was just a data point, like, you know, just think about why you did and move on, you know? Not that I wanna like criticize any… people have to do themselves, you know?

Ute: You do. Oh, for sure.

Liane Morris: You know, like, but, but that, for me, that was never gonna work.

And so I track my drinking using an app. There’s lots of them out there. I use Try Dry and I try to stick to two occasions per month, which I mostly manage and I plan for it. So special occasion, you know, I still go, I still do, you know, cellar door tours, you know, but I know that that’s one of my occasions that month that I will drink.

And that’s how I do it. Plus, I’m also experimenting with zero alcohol wines and lower alcohol wines. There’s some, there’s a lovely… there’s a lot of kind of, I mean, lower alcohol, one used to mean 9% , which is not actually that low in alcohol.

Ute: Right.

Liane Morris: And then the next level that popped up in a lot of places was 7%. And I know there’s a label, Kim Crawford from New Zealand, she does a lovely 7% Sauvignon Blanc, which is delicious. But the latest is this 5% level and yeah, and that’s quite exciting. I think that’s exciting because you can relax, you know, and you know that you’re not doing yourself too much damage.

You can actually still drive, you know, like it’s cool. It’s cool.

Ute: Yeah. Yeah. This is interesting. The nutritionist that I just interviewed, she talked to me about a friend of hers who was pregnant and they tried non-alcoholic sparkling wine and they were both very skeptical at first, you know, going, “ah, how good can it really be?”

And they had nothing but good things to say. She said it tasted just like the real thing, minus, you know, the alcohol. Which especially for her pregnant friend was of course really nice. So…

Liane Morris: Yeah, so I think the bubbles really helps. Yeah. I have to, I have to confess, I’m, I’m not gonna lie… it is hard to find a really good zero wine, and I’m really looking forward to my little package from Tamburlaine to test out theirs. But the fizz helps.

Ute: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. You, you’re gonna have to let me know what you think once you get that and you try it because I’m, I’m starting to think that I need to at least dabble into it so I know what I’m talking about.

Liane Morris: Oh, absolutely. Like with, people are becoming a lot more health conscious and I think it’s gonna get more and more popular. I really do. And I know, every bar I go into and every restaurant I go to, I ask for zero wine. And I know that nine outta 10 of them are gonna say “We don’t have any.” They all stock zero beer, but they, they haven’t quite caught onto the wine yet. But I just think that little drip, you know, of asking all the time, maybe one day they will

Ute: Yeah, yeah, for sure. The more people ask about it. So, you know, I think I’m gonna do this, I don’t know, do an Instagram post or something and ask people about the wines that they’re drinking, the zero wines, and, and see what I get back as far as information goes because I’m, I’m very curious to talk more about that.

Liane Morris: Yeah. I think more winemakers are thinking about it too. I mean, there is a cost to it. You know, actually, a lot of people don’t understand why their zero wines might cost them more.

Ute: Right.

Liane Morris: But of course it has to go through a whole other process and a whole bunch more equipment is required, of course, to do it. So…

Ute: Of course. Yeah. And I mean, you know, I think every time that you’re looking for alternatives to something, generally, the idea for me, as you know, I don’t wanna drink wine so much that I’m gonna go bankrupt because I’m only drinking good wine. If I’m drinking a good wine and I drink that, you know, once every two weeks or so, or even less than that, then it’s very worth it for me to invest in that good wine because I know I’m getting something good.

It’s not something that I do. You know, I don’t drink wine like water. I drink water for hydration. I drink wine for enjoyment.

Liane Morris: Yeah. I don’t know what it’s like in America. But I do know Australia… is that we are big drinkers here and it doesn’t matter what you do in Australia, alcohol is usually involved somehow.

Ute: Sure, yeah.

Liane Morris: So to cut that down is quite difficult. Quite tricky.

Ute: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think this is why so many people are going on these sobriety journeys and, and you know, keeping track and posting about it online and everything because they want to kind of get away from the idea that the only way they can enjoy time away with friends is by drinking alcohol.

Liane Morris: That’s right.

Ute: Yeah. So, and you know, obviously this is a wine podcast, so I’m not gonna tell people stop drinking wine.

Liane Morris: Absolutely .

Ute: But I really do… I’ve said this before on previous podcasts, and I, I say it online, I really want to drive home that message that, you know, drinking wine doesn’t mean that you have to drink wine all the time.

Liane Morris: Yeah.

Ute: It’s about enjoyment. To me wine is, you know, often about accompanying a meal. You know, I eat a very special meal. I want a very special wine to go with it. If I want to hydrate, I’m gonna drink water, or I’m gonna drink, you know, some tea to kind of calm me down or warm me up in the winter or whatever.

Wine does not serve that purpose. So, I always want to make sure, you know, that people understand I’m not just here telling you “Drink wine. Drink wine.” It’s, you know, drink wine carefully and in moderation and enjoy it. Really enjoy it, rather than to just chug all the time.

So I do want to shift back to your profession as a writer. I am especially curious about what you mean when you say you write about wineries. Like do you pitch the stories? Do they, do you get in touch with them? Do they get in touch with you? Do you visit them? How does that all work?

Liane Morris: Okay, so I’m assigned the stories by my editor. So I’m given a brief and the contact details. Then I interview most people over the phone and talk to winemakers and vineyard owners. I’d love to visit them all, but it would take up too much time, and I’m afraid it would end up costing me too much to do the job. By the time I’ve been tempted to buy the wine on my visits , I’d buy… I’d, I’d be paying them to do the job.

So, no, it’s better to be, have that little bit of distance. It’s certainly made me more knowledgeable about wines. And when we do go into the Valley on little day trips and things, I know where I want to visit and what wines I want to try because I’ve been chatting to people. So yeah, I have a, a huge long list of places I wanna go to.

Ute: Right. Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, if there’s something like 150 wineries. So you said you, you live on the coast. So how far do you have to drive to get to the nearest winery?

Liane Morris: One hour.

Ute: Oh, it is an hour drive?

Liane Morris: Yeah.

Ute: So tell me too, and this is a question that is completely not in the list of questions I sent to you. You have, you know, other big topics that you really specifically discuss for women on your blog? Can you elaborate just a little bit on that? Because I feel like, you know, it’s not about wine, but we’re all women here, so I think they’re, they’re still gonna wanna hear about it.

Liane Morris: Okay. Well, okay, so I have a Facebook group called Ordinary Transformations for Midlife. So it’s about women in their midlife and it’s about menopause. It’s about navigating through that time in your life, which is a very difficult time for a lot of women for all sorts of reasons. It’s not just about menopause, it’s also about, you know, becoming an empty nester. It’s about kind of acknowledging that, you know, you are, you are more than halfway through your life and you know, what are you going to do, you know, all those dreams you had… what are you gonna do about them, right? Are you gonna let them go or are you actually gonna make them happen? Because guess what, sweetie? You’re running outta time, right? So…

Ute: I think I need some wine right about now!

Liane Morris: But, so, you know, I’ve been on my own journey and that journey included menopause.

It included things like letting go of people who are toxic in my life. And what an amazing freedom can come from that. Suddenly I was free to become the person that I’m meant to be. It’s about things like honoring, looking back at what you wanted to do and be when you were a little girl, and honoring that in some way.

Right. So when I was little, all I wanted to be was famous. I wanted to be a famous singer or a famous actress or whatever. Right? And never happened for me, for all sorts of reasons, which I won’t go into here. That’s a whole other podcast, but… But what I did last year, well actually kind of this time, the year before I saw an ad for a new choir and I thought to myself, “oh, isn’t that nice?”

And then it clicked in the back of my head. You should really do that! And I thought “oh, who’s got time for that?” I’ve got to, I’ve gotta take one son to soccer twice a week. I’ve gotta take the other son to drama and…

Ute: Gosh, it sounds so much like me!

Liane Morris: …when am I gonna find time to do that? And I made myself do it. And it was, it’s been an amazing experience! Because not only has it… it’s a, it’s a, an all women’s choir. So it’s opened me up to this whole kind of sisterhood of song. It’s also, I remember the first time we performed on stage, it’s quite a big stage and we had a big crowd. And the joy, it was like, I’m here. I finally got here, you know? And it was… all I could think about was that little girl and how desperately she wanted it, you know? And I’ve given that gift to her, you know? And it’s not, okay, I’m not gonna be a famous singer, but it’s still getting that kernel of what it’s about, you know?

Ute: Yeah.

Liane Morris: And giving it as a gift to myself.

So yeah, so I talk about all that sort of stuff and, you know, weight loss and, and all that sort of thing. So, yeah. There you go.

Ute: So, I, I have two things to say about that. One, a follow up question, how big is your group? Is it international? Can people from the United States request to join it?

Liane Morris: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I, I don’t see why not. It’s just on Facebook. So…

Ute: But, and so you started that Facebook group, which obviously…

Liane Morris: Oh yeah. That’s why. So, so I did that because all my friends were asking me, “oh my gosh, you’ve lost so much weight.” You know, “how did you do it?” Blah, blah, blah. And I didn’t want anybody else to be as stuck as me when I was told I had to lose weight.

I felt so stuck. I didn’t know what to do. Because I knew that if I tried, I, it wouldn’t work. So I was so stuck, and I just want to tell the world that you gotta get your head right. It’s the bit that nobody talks about, you know? And the reason I call it Ordinary Transformation is because that’s where the truth lies.

It’s in the ordinary, it’s in the every day. It’s in the, the stuff that you do every day. And it’s boring. And it’s ordinary and don’t get, you know, blinded by extraordinary stories of extraordinary people and celebrities.

Ute: Oh, look at this 100 year old woman who ran a marathon.

Liane Morris: Yes, yes, yes. It’s just ordinary, it’s just boring, right?

Like, I’m just a suburban housewife sitting here, but you know, I’ve turned my life completely around.

Ute: Yeah.

Liane Morris: And the, cuz that’s the other thing is the invisibility of midlife.

Ute: Yeah.

Liane Morris: Women in midlife are in.

Ute: Yes. Yes. Oh my gosh. Now you got . You’re gonna get me talking about a whole other topic here.

Liane Morris: I’m so sorry.

Ute: So I am gonna cut that short here, but I really, really do… I mean, I love this topic and you know, obviously being a midlife woman myself and, I, I now have this business with my business partner. She’s a millennial. I’m aGen Xer. And it’s gonna be really fun to, you know, do these podcast episodes together.

But you know, what you were saying earlier too, about, you know, joining this choir and doing something that, that the little girl wanted and kind of honoring that. I can very much relate to that in, in many ways, and one of these things was to start this business. You know, I’ve, I’ve wanted to be in business by myself for a really long time, and I’ve tried any number of things.

I mean, I started 25 years ago, you know, trying to do a freaking gift basket business. And you know, over the years trying so many different things and then just kind of giving up on myself because I was so busy with other things. I was homeschooling my children. I was constantly driving somebody somewhere.

They had to be, you know, at ballet and they had to be at their classes and they had to be with their friends. And now that I’m allowing myself to do this, and I am okay with hearing my voice on a podcast. And not cringe every time. It’s the little girl in me, literally is jumping up and down and doing a happy dance because I’m so excited to do this and, and realizing, yeah, I am approaching 50, so I am kind of at that halfway point if I’m lucky… I am kind of at that halfway point. When am I gonna do it? If not now.

Liane Morris: Absolutely.

Ute: So yeah, so that went completely in the opposite direction and I’m gonna have to, somehow…

Liane Morris: Pull it back to wine

Ute: Put it in the show notes, “I’m sorry, we talked about middle-aged women!”

But you know, I am the owner of this podcast so I can do whatever the hell I want. But I do have one more question for you, and that is going back to the wine and wine regions. I’d love to know, have you ever visited wine regions that are not in Australia, like gone to New Zealand or gone to one of the old world wineries in Italy, France, or something like that.

Liane Morris: So I have to confess that I have not. But I have been to plenty within Australia because we have several different wine regions in Australia. And I’ve enjoyed so I’ve enjoyed cellar visits in in the Riverina. So there’s a there’s an area in Australia called the Riverina and a city regional, sort of, town called Griffith which has a very strong Italian heritage. And I’ve enjoyed some lovely wines there.

And there’s fabulous cool climate wineries around Murrumbateman in Canberra, which is kind of our capital city of Australia. If you do visit Australia, you have to go to South Australia, and particularly the Clare Valley. There’s a lot of people with German heritage there.

So the the background of wine in that region is German. Very strongly so and they’re all like all our wine regions. They’re all very, they’re all quite different. And they all have their specialties. And one of my favorites would have to be, I remember trying wine called Three Bridges Durif. So, I do drink red. And it’s by the Calabria Family Wines.

It was previously called the West End Estate, and it’s in Griffith in the Italian sort of area. And I remember when my husband and I first tasted it over an Italian meal, and it blew our tiny minds with the depth of its flavor. You can actually, like, literally taste the chocolate, like, it’s amazing. It won gold at the International Wine Challenge. And I recently discovered that one of our local winemakers, Bryan Currie at Hungerford Hill, was actually the winemaker there.

So full circle. There you go.

Ute: Yeah. Yeah.

Liane Morris: So it’s cool.

Ute: That’s, that’s amazing. Yes. So that is definitely somewhere that I need to go. Australia is on my list. Yeah, I, you know, obviously we covered Australia in my most previous wine certification and I’m studying for my exam, the written exam, I’m going to be sitting for that in March, and Australia is just so complex. And you know, I almost, I almost feel like you could get an entire certification just on Australia.

Liane Morris: Yeah.

Ute: Because it is so varied.

Liane Morris: Yeah. And it’s becoming even more so actually because of climate change. And various kind of weather things that have happened here in Australia. The winemakers have started to really experiment and they’re using different grape varieties, you know, from hotter regions of the world and they’re getting some really cool stuff happening with that.

So, and sustainability is really big now. Like a lot of the wineries are, are trying to be more sustainable and that’s definitely a trend.

Ute: Absolutely. Yes, it is. Well, and, and this kind of brings me to the end here already. I definitely hope that after we’re done here you’re gonna send me, you know, the, the link to your Facebook group and things like that, you know, whatever it is that you would like to see in the show notes, send that to me. And to our listeners, please find Liane on… Where would they find you? Ideally? The best place to be.

Liane Morris: Oh gosh. I suppose Instagram.

Ute: Okay.

Liane Morris: Yeah, Instagram or Facebook. Yeah.

Ute: Sounds great. Well, I mean, okay, so just, just send me all of the links and I’ll put them in the show notes.

Liane Morris: Okay.

Ute: And I am so happy that you agreed to be on the podcast. Thank you so much.

Liane Morris: Can I, can I make a confession? It’s my first ever.

Ute: Oh, is it?

Liane Morris: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I’ve never done it before. .

Ute: Yay!

Liane Morris: It’s one of my little kind of midlife challenges to myself and, and part of my visibility thing was to do some public speaking and, and I’m, I’m doing a course this year and you are the first cab off the rank.

Ute: You know, I am really happy to hear that. That’s, that’s amazing. I’ve been a guest on two podcasts, but it was not about wine. This is years ago when I was still working in nutrition and I was on two nutrition podcasts as a guest, and at the time I was still having, you know, a real issue hearing my own voice, but, I got over that.

So I’m, I’m really enjoying it. I think recording these podcast episodes is, is a lot of fun and I love talking to all of these different people and hearing their stories and you know, what, what they’ve got to tell about their corner of the world. And I mean, I. As little as 10 years ago, I would’ve never thought that I’d be talking to someone on a podcast who’s in Australia.

You know, would’ve never occurred to me. So this is really exciting stuff for me as well.

Liane Morris: Yeah. Well for me it’s like, wow, my first podcast is in the United States. That’s amazing. So cool.

Ute: Well, excellent. You know, now that we’ve come to this , let’s hug virtually . .

Liane Morris: Definitely go us!

Ute: So thank you again so much for taking the time. I do hope you have a really great rest of your day and have a great holiday season and drink mindfully.

Liane Morris: Thank you. You too. So thank you so much for having me.

Ute: Take care.

Liane Morris: Okay. Bye.

Ute: Bye-bye.