MAX ALLEN 

Max Allen has been writing about wine in Australia for fifteen years. He is the wine columnist for The Weekend Australian Magazine and G (Australia's first 'green lifestyle' magazine), wine editor for Australian Gourmet Traveller magazine, and a regular contributor to consumer and trade magazines such as Gourmet Traveller's Wine Magazine (Australia), Wine and Spirit International, Decanter, Harpers and the BBC's Olive (all in the UK), and Wine and Spirits in the USA.
 
Max published his first book - Red and White: Wine Made Simple - in 1997. Australia's wine-writing doyen, James Halliday, in his foreword for the book said: 'Red and White is by far the most enjoyable basic introduction to wine I have ever read or am ever likely to read. Indeed, it is one of the best books on wine of any description I have seen.' Max's other books include the Yarra Valley Wineguide; Sniff, Swirl and Slurp; Crush: the New Australian Wine Book; and The Really Useful Pocket Wine Book.
 
Max has recently launched an independent, critical guide to biodynamic wines in Australia: http://www.redwhiteandgreen.com.au/. This isn't his first foray into online wine writing: until the dot-com crash in 2001, Max was editor of the groundbreaking website, Wine Planet; and in the dim and distant mists of internet time (1995), he helped establish one of the world's first food and wine websites, Hogshead. From 2003 to 2005, Max also presented a regular wine segment on the popular TV show, Better Homes and Gardens.

In September, Max launched The Wine Map of Victoria, a comprehensive, detailed overview of the State's 20-plus wine regions and subregions.
 
In London in 1999, Red and White: Wine Made Simple, won the Andre Simon Memorial Award, one of the world's most prestigious gongs for wine-scribbling. It was the first time an Australian wine book had won the award. In 2003 Max was awarded the Wine Communicator of the Year Trophy by the International Wine and Spirit Competition in London - again, it was the first time an Australian had received this prestigious honour. Max is also a three-time winner at the World Food Media Awards in Adelaide and a three-time winner of the Food Media Club of Australia's award for wine-and-food writing.
 
Over the last 15 years, Max has been a regular and enthusiastic - if rather sceptical - judge at various Australian wine competitions including the Geelong, Clare, Rutherglen, Barossa, Sydney International Top 100, Strathbogie Ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Adelaide Hills wine shows. After a brief period away from the judging circuit, he returned with a vengeance in 2005 as Chief Judge at the innovative Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show in Mildura (http://www.aavws.com/) and, in 2006, as a judge at the annual Organic Wine Show, held as part of Organic Expo (http://www.organicexpo.com.au/). He is chief judge at those two shows again in 2007.
 

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