Biography

Jeff Gordon wrote a wine column for the Melbourne inner city community newspaper The Melbourne Times from 1996 until this year (2010). Jeff's wine knowledge comes from almost five decades of wine drinking: "I was fortunate to have both a father and grandfather who thought dinner or Sunday lunch without wine was a bit like egg without bacon". Trapped at boarding school in the 60s Jeff was regularly taken by either, both, or his uncle to some of Melbourne's best restaurants and pubs for lunch or dinner at weekends. He became accustomed to enjoying a glass or two. Indeed, taking himself to lunch one Saturday at the Southern Cross Grill Room he was shocked to discover that wine was alcohol and thus not available to him without an adult "in loco parentis".

From the day he attained his majority half a decade later Jeff has endeavoured to ensure there are not too many days without a glass of some wine or other – often more than one! His grandfather left him Portuguese port as an opening deposit for his cellar; his father O'Shea Hunter Shiraz and a love of old Riesling. Sadly, all but the love is long gone although the cellar still exists - albeit in a commercial rather than a home environment.

Since starting to write about wine Jeff has become known for his love of "value wine" no matter the price.  Value is always both subjective and comparative. He says, "I try to find the best quality relative to others at the same price point; for example, in the 70s and early 80s Penfolds Koonunga Hill was head and shoulders above other sub-$10 reds, and, as it also cellared really well, I bought as much as I could afford to drink on most days, thus allowing myself to have more dollars to spend on two or three premium cellaring bottles each fortnight without lowering the standard of wine drunk".  "I like to think I have changed some readers' drinking and cellaring attitudes and steered them towards better examples of Oz wine than they had been drinking".

Jeff likes to taste his wine "blind"; that is, with the bottle's identification masked, not him drunk!  Those he rates highly are then tasted with food: "only drunks, winemakers and wine writers regularly drink wine without food, and many wines that show up in tastings fall away with food, while others that taste just so-so blossom when tasted again with food", he says.