By James Atkinson
Australia’s First Families of Wine (AFFW) has announced Robert Hill-Smith from Australia’s oldest wine company, Yalumba (1849), as its new chairman.
Hill-Smith assumes the chair from Mitchell Taylor and is the fourth chairman of the initiative.
Founded in 2009, the group came together to raise the profile and provenance of quality Australian wine, at home and around the world. With a launch planned in the USA and Canada later this year, Robert will be at the forefront of putting Australia “back on the catwalk where Australia’s finest wines are taken seriously”.
“With 13 events over 14 days in five cities across North America, we will be blazing a trail to put Australian wine back into their drinking repertoire by celebrating our quality, history and diversity. Australia’s finest wine has a definite opportunity there and we want to bring it back into fashion and sustain our proposition,” Hill-Smith said.
He said AFFW will be aligning itself with a program of events that will support the recent investment of Wine Australia in the USA and Canada, putting Australia’s best wines back into the drinking repertoire of all wine enthusiasts.
“The time is right for us to show our commitment to that market and be there in person to tell our stories, make a lot of noise and have some fun. We’re going in, firing on all cylinders.”