Matthew was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner. He joins an eminent list of previously appointed Honorary Australians, including Lord Carrington, Sir Robert Wilson, Baroness Greenfield and Sir David Attenborough. In a wine trade survey (Harpers), UK retailers were asked which wine writer has the most influence over their customers. The answer was, unanimously, Matthew Jukes. In another list compiled by OLN, in May 2011, Matthew was voted the most influential wine writer in the UK. In March 2013 Matthew was given the Journalism Award at the Portuguese Wine Awards. With over 9 million Daily Mail readers a week, Matthew has the most keenly followed wine column in the UK. He also writes a weekly piece for MoneyWeek and occasional features for The Week and Decanter.
He has won the highly prestigious International Wine and Spirit Competition’s Trophy for Wine Communicator of the Year and he is the wine buyer for Bibendum Restaurant & Oyster Bar, the Masala World group of Indian Restaurants (Chutney Mary, Amaya and Veeraswamy) and the exclusive, private wine club Quintessentially Wine worldwide.
All six editions of The Wine List, his annual wine guide, were UK bestsellers. In addition, The Wine Book is in its eleventh year of publication. He created and co-authored Taste Food & Wine, an annual wine guide published in Australia and New Zealand, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer. Taste was a number one bestseller in its inaugural year of publication and it has won the Australian Food Media Award for Best Food and Writing. He has recently published his fourteenth book, 100 Most Iconic Wine Estates, published by Quintessentially Publishing. He describes this as the book he has wanted to write for twenty-five years. He lectures and judges all over the world.
In November 2011 Matthew moderated the Australian version of the Stonier International Pinot Noir Tasting with Huon Hooke and James Halliday on the panel. He has previously been a panellist and a guest speaker at this event. He was also a panellist at the inaugural SIPNOT event in London in January 2011 and again in 2012.
Matthew is the creator of a handful of ground-breaking initiatives – he invented his One Day Wine School over ten years ago. He also has a number of annual wine releases including the 100 Best Australian Wines (the tenth 100 Best List will be released in May 2013). The 100 Best Australian Wines Roadshow 2012/3 kicked off in autumn 2012 with twelve sell-out dates planned around the UK. The Great Australian Red competition is the quest to find the finest red blends that ‘define Australia’. TGAR is an unique Shiraz / Cabernet Sauvignon tasting (the seventh competition was held on 8 November 2012 in Adelaide, in collaboration with Tyson Stelzer) and The Great New Zealand Pinot Noir Classification (the sixth edition was published on 24 March 2013, again with Tyson Stelzer) is the first New World classification of its kind.
Matthew’s thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.
Matthew also launched the ’Hall of Fame’ of the 100 Best Australian Wines in May 2011 in London.
Matthew is also the Patron and Founder of Touch Wine, which he created in 2005 in order to raise money for the Hutt St Centre in Adelaide and other homeless refuges around the world. Wine Rules, a new initiative, used the Touch Wine template for the first time in Melbourne in November 2010. In November 2011 these two events were again enormously successful. Both incredible celebrations of fine wine, delicious food, loud music and deft ‘touch footy’ skills - they raised well over $100000AUD combined! St Mary’s House of Welcome, in Brunswick Street in Melbourne, is the chosen beneficiary in Victoria and the success of this second year event has guaranteed it a slot on the social calendar for years to come. In November 2012 Touch Vinnie-Yard was launched in Canberra raising money for the St Vincent de Paul Society. And so in November 2012 there were three wine tasting and touch footy events in three States in Australia. To date these various initiatives have raised over $800,000AUD for charity. For more information see www.winerules.com.au and www.touchwine.com.au. The next Touch Wine, Wine Rules and Touch Vinnie-Yard events will be held on the 10th, 17th and 8th November 2013 respectively. Please try to come along – they are unforgettable. If you cannot make it but would like to donate some money to the Hutt St Centre, St Mary’s House of Welcome or St Vincent de Paul Society please contact me directly.
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