A Travelling Winemakers' Oenodyssey

My Travel Urge Began Young

I always knew that I wanted to travel.

Aged eight, I won a prize at school. I was rewarded with a voucher to spend on one book, any book, to be presented for my academic enthusiasm. I went to the local bookstore and once I laid my eyes upon the big red ‘Travel Book’ by Lonely Planet, I just knew that it was the one. The pages of this book expanded my world from the streets of Sussex and transported me to the bright colours of French Polynesia, the smells of India and the adventurous climbs of Peru.

Over my childhood years, I helped to plan holidays with my mum. Researching deals, hotels, restaurants (a particular speciality of mine) and excursions we could partake in. I was blessed and privileged enough to travel to some beautiful and exotic locations during my adolescence. My mum, like me, has always had a travel bug of which we enjoyed exploring together, then, and to this day.

Entering my teenage years, I vividly remember conversations in the common room with friends dreaming up ideas for their futures. They would be discussing career goals and getting into their first-choice university whilst I was left pondering why I was the odd one out. I didn’t truly care about those things, but I felt like I should do, as that is what school and society dictated. Whereas in reality, I just wanted to experience the pages of that big red book with my own eyes. To feel the magic the way I did when I first turned those pages.

The Origins of the Odyssey

Cuba and Central America

Still fighting that internal conflict, I decided the best way to resolve it was by joining some friends on their gap year trip. At eighteen, I put on a backpack and went travelling around Cuba and Central America for three months with the money I had earned working early morning shifts at a bakery. This trip silenced my internal critic and was the start of my odyssey.

I started a WordPress blog called Tales of a Nomad ‘The Travelling Typer’. A way to keep my friends and family up to date on my travels. I lasted about 3 blog posts before I ran out of momentum. I was heavily encouraged that my writing was good enough but I didn’t truly believe in myself and scared of failure, I stopped writing.

Madrid

On returning to the UK, I instantly knew I wasn’t ready to be home and swiftly booked a flight to Madrid. This was my first solo adventure. I had made a 2016 ‘Goals’ list which included pursuing travelling and learning Spanish, of which I was following. I went there for the Spanish classes but admittedly, stayed for the partying. I became such a regular to the hostel bar crawl that a staff illness consequently had me leading it.

Canada

Whilst in Madrid, I got the chance to apply for a Canadian IEC visa. I had recently added "Do a ski season" to the goals list. An idea implanted into me by Aussies I had met in Central America. I applied for my visa via spotty hostel wifi in Madrid and despite my late application date, it got accepted. I was headed off to Big White in November 2016, aged nineteen.

Big White opened up my world to lifelong friendships and new passions. The restaurant I worked for offered me the first wine training I had ever received. Before that, my viniculture knowledge extended to trying to remember with Cabernet on the pub bar list was white or red.

The notes from that training, although acting as a guide to an inquisitive customer from a very confused server, were the cornerstone for where my passion for wine began. I had never known what a good wine was until I tried wines from The Okanagan. ‘The Bear’ by Fairview Cellars was the wine that started it all and Gamay Noir (by Volcanic Hills) was the varietal.

Mexico & The USA

Big White left a travel-sized hole in my heart that needed to be filled again. With still the desire to learn Spanish, I decided I wanted to go to Mexico and volunteer in hostels for keep. Another promise to myself was upon turning twenty one, I would do a trip around the US. So that is what I did. I visited Boston, New York, Chicago, LA and San Francisco before heading down to Mexico for a couple of months of cultural exchange.

Australia

On my return from Mexico, I couldn’t deny the pull I felt to visit Australia any longer. A desire that had continued to grow since childhood and exponentially after making many close Australian friends in Big White. I worked 7 months in a managerial role in a pub before heading to Sydney. I travelled up the East Coast up to Perth before settling in Brisbane for a few months, working the Moët & Chandon tent at a restaurant on the river.

Where Travel and Wine Collided

Hospitality had helped to peak my interest in wine but Australia was where I really felt a shift. The accessibility to a whole new country of wines with labels and prices to entice. I was only used to the big label bottom shelf Aussie wines from the local supermarket. On my solo drive of the Great Ocean Road to Adelaide, I stopped and took a tour of the Barossa/Eden Valley. Something clicked for me on that tour and ignited a spark. I found myself being the ‘ooh pick me, pick me’ kid at the front of class to a group of wine-sipping onlookers.

A Choice

I returned home in January 2020 and then covid hit. I needed to make a choice because travel had been taken away. I started to look into what degrees may interest me but with 2 poor A-Levels, my choices seemed limited. I wrote a list of career yes and no – not an office 9-5, ideally science-based, practical, has to include travel and ideally, incorporating my hospitality background and food and wine interests. I explained it all to my mum, who in her parental wisdom, said she had seen courses for Viticulture & Oenology at Plumpton College. “Huh, What’s that?”. Other than knowing -ology is normally the suffix for a science degree, I had never even heard of it. However, after researching the course curriculum I knew I had found what I had been searching for for the past five years. I had finally landed on a degree that made sense.

My Degree

I interviewed via video call, thinking it was a long shot, but luckily they took a chance on me. At first, I started on a foundation course for wine production due to my A-Levels. After the first year, I proved to myself I was capable and I switched to the BSc in Viticulture & Oenology. Utilising the time that I couldn’t travel anymore to get my degree was one of the best decisions I ever made. I went from feeling limited and trapped by one career to travel to feeling like the world had opened up and more like myself than I ever had. I had direction finally, a direction that would allow me to continue to travel around the world making wine. What I wasn't initially aware of was how I had ended up joining a huge community of ‘Travelling Winemakers’ in the process.

Officially a Travelling Winemaker (TW)

From September 2023 – November 2024, I completed 3 harvests around the world. Starting in the UK, working a sparkling wine harvest to save money. I then used my savings to move to Australia with my partner Dan (a fellow travelling winemaker) in December of 2023. We did a huge trip driving around Australia from Brisbane to Margaret River, across the Nullarbor to start work on a vintage from January – April. We then headed back to the UK in June for a bit more money-saving and to organise our visas for the US. By August 2024 we were in Oregon, USA starting a harvest which lasted until November.

Burnout

I was living the dream, travelling the world and making wine. However, your battery is only so big and burnout crept up on me. Suddenly, my mental health took a dip whilst in the US. A year on the go with a very physical job and long hours, alongside other stressors, had caused me to become burnt out. I came back to the UK confused as to whether the life I had been working on for four years was what I truly wanted. I had lost touch with myself, and my choices and I had lost direction again, something I had worked so hard to gain. Wine production is a passion job. It can be extremely hard work with poor pay and slow progression but we do it because it is our passion. It is what keeps us going.

Why Wine?

This knock got me going back to the beginning and questioning “Why wine?”.

I found myself writing a pro/cons list again and it all came back to the reasons of why I originally chose it. The main one being – travel.

I love its unpredictability, its community and the way it makes me feel alive like it is truly my purpose. Wine gives you the ability to travel without even leaving your living room. It can transport you to a different place and time, full of stories. Every bottle is a true expression of passion, community, and terroir, bringing the world to your glass. Wine has become the other circle in the Venn diagram of my heart. Now, I just needed to find the overlap.

It's a Small World - Why I started The Oenodyssey

Once I started travelling I realised how small the world truly is for like-minded people. The same for the wine world. Yet, for this little niche of travelling winemakers and wine enthusiasts, we don’t have somewhere we can go for tips and tricks and to share our odysseys.

I decided it was time to listen to my heart and the encouragement of others and make writing the overlap in the Venn. So I started this blog, ‘The Oenodyssey’. I want this to be a place of sharing, our community of passionate individuals. Stories from those within production, travel advice and diving into global wine regions, sharing production knowledge and more. It is time to stop the gatekeeping and superiority that the wine world seems to hold so dear. It is not the reason the producers got into the industry, so it is time to tell our story.

Photography and capturing my odyssey through photos has always been a passion of mine. So please enjoy below some photos from the adventures I described in this blog post.

See you next week!