Julian Langworthy first struck me as the embodiment of happy-go-luckiness. A healthy irreverence, ready quip and loud laugh were standard issue, and he seemed to be breaking and losing more trophies than anyone else was winning.

I was the Victorian chair of Wine Communicators of Australia when Julian’s 2014 Deep Woods Estate Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon won the Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy at the Melbourne Royal Wine Awards. No wonder he looked like the cat that got the cream at the awards lunch we organised; Australia’s most prestigious wine trophy came with a $20,000 cheque to do whatever he liked to “further his wine education”. We talk about that on the podcast.

Around the same time, Julian brought his own Nocturne wines to us at CellarHand, in the hope that we would agree to be the brand’s first Australian distributor. We said yes. The wines—a single-vineyard Margaret River Chardonnay, Cabernet and rosé back then (the rosé has since migrated to the subregional range)—were excellent, and there was no chance that you’d let this combination of charisma, ambition, ebullience and prowess slip through your fingers.

Julian’s day job is chief winemaker and general manager of Deep Woods Estate, which is the linchpin of the Fogarty Wine Group (FWG). We discuss Deep Woods at length, from his unorthodox hiring by owner Peter Fogartry to the operations of the group, which owns vineyards and brands across four Australian states, including Dalwhinnie in Victoria, Lowestoft in Tasmania and Lake’s Folly in NSW.

We talk a bit about trophies, and I suggest we shouldn’t be blasé about the wins. Nor am I exaggerating this aspect of Julian’s career. Nocturne itself has picked up its fair share of silverware, while Jules has been crowned Halliday Wine Companion Winemaker of the Year and picked up the Len Evans Trophy, Stodart Trophy, Max Schubert Trophy and Decanter World’s Best Cabernet. Deep Woods has won more than 60 trophies and 200 gold medals on his watch—and FWG more broadly is a constant presence on the podium under his overall guidance.

Jeff Burch of Howard Park Wines is also mentioned in connection with Julian’s move to Deep Woods in his native Margaret River. That same hallowed region is home to several world-famous producers. Julian refers to the “founding families”, an informal term covering the likes of Cullen, Leeuwin Estate, Cape Mentelle, Vasse Felix and Moss Wood. The so-called “cool kids” mentioned as having managed to join that first rank include Stella Bella and Xanadu.

From Adelaide University days, Julian mentions erstwhile bottleshop colleague Sophie Otton, now a Sydney-based bar owner, sommelier, wine judge and writer. His lecturers included sensory evaluation specialist Patrick Iland, viticulture guru Peter Dry and Clare Valley icon Jeffrey Grosset, one of Australia’s foremost Riesling growers. Among Julian’s winemaking student cohort were Peter Dillon of Handpicked (married to winemaker Imogen Dillon of Ten Minutes by Tractor on the Mornington Peninsula), Peter Dredge of Dr Edge in Tasmania, former Bleasdale winemaker and Jimmy Watson winner Paul Hotker, Anna Pooley of Pooley Wines and Bubb + Pooley in Tasmania, and Dan Stocker of Heretic Wines in Margaret River.

It was at Wolf Blass that Julian first took telling steps in a winery role (and where Chassagne-Montrachet-based white Burgundy legend Pierre-Yves Colin was somewhat incongruously hanging around!). The Barossa winery was part of Beringer Blass and has now been subsumed into Treasure Wine Estates. Jules moved to Coonawarra within that same group, working at Jamiesons Run and then at Wynns Coonawarra Estate. The community members namechecked there include Emma Bowen of Bowen Estate, Dan Redman of Redman Wines and Dru Reschke of Koonara Wines. Last, but certainly not least, are a couple of hugely influential mentors at Wynns. One is Greg Tilbrook, the other the much-admired Sue Hodder, who herself has won just about every accolade as senior winemaker for this bastion of Australian Cabernet.

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