In the era of social media, we often get to know people long before we meet them in person. Anyone highly active on Twitter, for instance, likely has dozens or even hundreds of people that they have gradually gotten to know in little 140 character chunks, sometimes over years.
That’s the way I encountered James Scarcebrook for the first time. But then on a rainy, cold day in Austria’s Wachau valley, lost while looking for Domaine Wachau, I ran into a stranger wearing a backpack who was also lost, and searching for the same winery.
“Hey, are you Alder Yarrow?” asked this stranger in a surprising accent for the middle of Austria. And that is how I ended up meeting The Intrepid Wino and spending a couple of hours tasting Riesling and Gruner Veltliner with him in Austria.
James, who was on an ambitious round-the-world trip to most of the globe’s major wine regions, has since returned to Australia, and recently began a podcast called The Vincast. I happily joined him for a long chat last week, and if you’re curious about our discussion, I encourage you to take a listen.
We talked about falling in love with wine, how Vinography got started, and how my book The Essence of Wine came about.
