By my rough calculations, this week marks this eleventh birthday of this website, Australian Wine Review.

Eleven years!

Every ‘ozwinereview’ birthday I revisit those original posts and cringe, but I think everyone feels the same way about their early work. My debut album would have been rubbish…

The main purpose for this post, however, is to simply say thanks. Thanks for reading, commenting, emailing. All of it. That feedback makes the long nights of (unpaid) writing worthwhile.

These last 12 months have been some of the most momentous in my life too, with the birth of my (beautiful) daughter, and a wholesale change in focus as a result. My posting has also been more sporadic, even though volumes of wine tasted have not dropped (I really need more hours in the day).

Eleven years ago when I started this website it served just as a place to put my tasting notes. I had ambitions for more, but 2008 Andrew would not have envisaged how Australian Wine Review would one day help me travel the globe just to taste/drink/talk about wine.

With luck, I’ll still be here in 2029, still struggling to spell ‘disappointing’ and overusing brackets, while banging grumpily about overripe wines.

In the meantime, a final thanks to everyone who makes this website happen. To my family, who grow tired of a house full of wine boxes (sorry Jime); to all the people who send me samples; to the kindly developers who have helped out with endless issues (hi Sumith) and to everyone else who has contributed along the way.

I love youse all.

(Photo brenneman)