WBM – Australia’s Wine Business Magazine turns 20

WBM is 20 years old. They said we’d never last. They were almost right.

The standing ovation we received for the new publication in April 2005 soon faded.

Trouble was on the horizon for the wine industry and magazines.

A digital revolution was coming.

I walked the streets of Adelaide most lunchtimes, stopping at a park bench to think about the future.

I had a young family. We all did. Perhaps I should just find a steady job.

Dad, 94, who owned Ken Madigan Sports Store in Port Pirie in the 1970s, often insisted on making the three-hour bus trip from the Iron Triangle to Adelaide to give me some advice over sweet and sour chicken at T-Chow.

His motto in life is never turn back.

For me, it was simple: a quality industry deserves a quality magazine.

It had to work.

We have come this far thanks to the enduring support of AP John, Braud, WineWorks, Barossa Enterprises, Lallemand, MCC, Amorim and many others in the good times and the truly dire.

In 2006 we unleashed The Week That Was on an unsuspecting industry.

The irreverent tone wasn’t for everyone; one businessman pulled his ads.

I spent that whole afternoon on the park bench.

We listened to the criticism.

And didn’t turn back.

TWTW has more subscribers than it has ever had.

We joined Twitter in 2009 and were an easy target for the bullies and lunatics; suddenly ‘old’ media weren’t the only ones with a voice.

We now have 29,801 social media followers.

This industry still values a high quality printed mag – an extension, perhaps, of our love for beautiful wine labels.

WBM is designed by Naomi Giatas. I take no credit for the endless comments we receive about its beautiful presentation.

Thanks, Naomi. Thanks also to Katie Spain whose cover stories add heart and soul.

Katie gives it everything she’s got.

Cindie Smart went above and beyond in the early days.

Thanks to Jess Madigan who was five months old when WBM was born.

Thanks to Tyson Stelzer, Mike Bennie, Larry Lockshin, David LeMire and others early on the scene.

WBM was Peter Fuller’s idea.

He told me at a job interview at The British Hotel that we knew how to make world class wine, but marketing and selling it was a different story.

Peter peeled off along the way, but his vision still holds up.

Then-WFA CEO Steve Strachan was on the cover of our first issue.

Cover boys d’Arry Osborn, Br John May, Ray Beckwith, Gil Wahlquist, Peter Lehmann and David Clarke have left us.

It has been an honour to record their lives in wine and those of the 166 others.

A special part of this job is seeing up close the kindness of Aussie wine families.

Whether donating a carton to the St Kitts Elvis Fan Club or helping a comrade down on their luck, this is a good industry with good people.

It breaks your heart when China and America did what they did.

When the bushfires and hailstones did what they did.

Resilience and perseverance drive the spirit of Australian wine.

Nick Dugmore style.

For the first time in our 20-year journey, wine is a bit out of favour – mainly with people who don’t know a good thing when they see it.

Wine has as good a future as any drink.

It takes a village to raise a child and 137 country towns to raise a wine magazine.

After 172 editions and counting, there are a few hidden scars, but that only adds to the one thing that makes wine more special than other drinks – character.

Thank you for being here with me on the park bench of life.

Special thanks to Amorim, AP John, Braud, Barossa Enterprises, Lallemand, MCC, WineWorks,

• First published in our weekly newsletter The Week That Was.