Like Sir Ian Botham, Matthew Jukes often came across as more Australian than British.
He reveled in mateship and ribbing; loved Australian fine wine more than anyone else on earth; spent more time at Australia House on the Strand than any Prime Minister.
In 2005 a nice home was affordable, Mr Brightside was on the iPod mini, the world was relatively stable and Australian wine was going places.
WBM – Australia’s Wine Business Magazine emerged from the musty basement of an old building in Kent Town, sharing the joint with a fancy hairdresser upstairs none of us could afford.
Matthew Jukes took an interest in what we were doing.
He was in town for Touch Wine, which he founded to raise money for the Hutt Street Centre for the homeless.
When Matthew was a boy he played the piano at singalongs on weekends for stroke victims at a rehab centre where his mum worked.
He had an innate quality to help people.
He deserved a cover – just our eighth – wedged between Jane Ferrari and Peter Godden.
I met Matthew upstairs of the Richmond Hotel in Rundle Mall.
I was anxious.
But after the warmest greeting and firmest handshake – it felt like I had known him all my life.
He had the rare gift of making everyone feel special and heard.
Full of life and enthusiasm, he spoke with conviction, his powerful voice amplifying his message of hope and humanity.
I wanted to do a good job. I faxed Matthew a proof of the article I had carefully written about Touch Wine.
One small change, he said politely and cheerily.
“It’s Jukes, not Dukes.” Unforgivable.
Matthew was the one man in Adelaide everyone wanted a piece of – and I’d made the cardinal sin.
All class, Matthew laughed it off. Life lesson there about tolerance and forgiveness.
There were homeless people at Touch Wine, some preferring to watch from a distance.
Jukes was there at dawn setting up, and at dusk packing up, with a glass or two in between.
Mental health wasn’t talked about back then; looking back, our industry needed the conversation.
This heartwarming event inspired by our mate from the Motherland was good for our psyche.
It helped the less fortunate and brought us together as a community to have fun and feel good about ourselves.
Twenty-one years later, it is called connection and is highly valued.
Matthew continued on his brilliant career, teaming up with his great friend Tyson Stelzer for dozens of books and events – telling anyone who would listen that Australian fine wine is as good as any out there.
“I have been shouting it ’til I am blue in the face,” he told WBM in March.
Matthew worked hard to learn every small detail about Australian wine including the human element; to do that properly, he immersed himself fully in our way of life.
In 2012 Matthew became an Honorary Australian.
He is in good company with Sir David Attenborough.
The next Maurice O’Shea surely has Matthew’s name on it.
He gave the 2022 Grange 20/20. The perfect score; the perfect finish.
A special hug for Amelia.
And Marty and Tyson.
Matthew, we didn’t say this enough.
It felt good to have you in our corner in the good times and the truly awful, often when Australian wine couldn’t find a friend.
Hutt Street Centre carries on its good work.
The homeless still sleep on the streets.
There’s a chance some of them would remember the name Matthew Jukes.
It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice. Matthew was both.
20/20 for a life well lived.