Introducing Ned Goodwin MW, JamesSuckling.com’s Newest Team Member

JamesSuckling.com welcomes a new team member this week, Ned Goodwin MW, an influential figure in the Australian wine industry who has fashioned an enviable career and worked widely throughout the wine world since becoming Japan’s first Master of Wine in 2010. Ned most recently worked as a chief critic for Australia’s Halliday Wine Companion, and continues to be a dux of the Len Evans Tutorial in Hunter Valley, Australia. He has also served as Bettane et Desseauve’s critical voice on Antipodean wines for the Chinese market. His consulting clients have included the lauded Montalcino estate Biondi-Santi as well as Langton’s, Australia’s premier auction house.

Ned hosts “Taste with Langton’s,” an interactive wine-tasting program on YouTube, and has also co-hosted Divino Tuscany with James Suckling and the musician Sting. More recently, Ned founded of his own company, Wine Diamonds, a niche importer based in Tokyo, and he previously hosted his own Japanese television show on wine, “Vintage,” in 2000.

Ned was born in London, raised in Australia, and educated in Tokyo and Paris He currently splits his time between Tokyo, where he has resided full-time for 14 years, and his beloved Sydney.

We sat down with Ned to ask him about some details on his life and career, in the form of the following Q & A:

Q: When was your first inkling that wine would become your thing?

A: I come from a creative family. I went to university in Paris, majoring in political science. I soon changed this to art history one morning when I looked around me! After all, I could study political science anywhere. I have always been fascinated by the notion of provenance: why and how things are shaped by place and culture. I recall the epiphany over a bottle of Saumur at some louche bar. I then bought a case and realized that as with a painting on the wall, the wine's nuances shifted with the passing moments. Depending on these moments, the wine would resonate more or less strongly, although each bottle in the case was ostensibly the same. This attests to the veracity of the adage, “There is no such thing as good wine, only good bottles,” while proving a catalyst for my interest in quality wine on a philosophical level as much as an aesthetic one.

Q: Tell us a little about your experience in becoming Japan’s first Master of Wine. Why Japan instead of Australia, France, the United States or UK.?

A: I went to high school in rural Japan as an exchange student for a year, when I was 15. Afterward, I worked in various fields that allowed me to speak the language and sustain a cultural affinity with the place. I’m from Australia, was educated in France, lived and worked for many years as a sommelier in the United States and was born in the UK. Once I was offered a role to manage the wine program for a vast restaurant consortium in Tokyo, the decision to go felt intuitive. I liked the anonymity and observations that living in a starkly foreign culture allows. Besides, the Japanese wine market is considerably more interesting than the others but, perhaps, for the United States.

Q: What was your original main aim in forging a career in wine and what would you say your top career highlights have been?

A: I have no aim except for transmitting the joy of discovering great wine to others. Passing the MW was a highlight, I suppose, but more so, nurturing interest in wine, offering guidance and helping to cultivate the career of so many young Japanese wine professionals. In doing so, we have changed perceptions of wine in Japan and opened the market to wine styles that were previously disregarded or ignored.

Q: Who are some of the people that have had the greatest influence on your career?

A: David Rosoff, then wine director at Michael's in Los Angeles; Tim Kopec, head sommelier at Veritas in New York; my father for letting me go my own way without prejudice, Professor Peter-Michael Von Bawey of the American University of Paris for showing me what critical thinking was all about; my former roommate and well-known socio-anthropologist Nathaniel Roberts, who encouraged me to pursue something “higher” in wine; and Peter Scudamore-Smith MW, who pushed me over the line.

Q: What is your favorite wine country or region and why?

A: Italy in general for the food, wine and precipitous mania, particularly in and around Naples, my favorite city.

Q: What wine countries or regions will you be covering for JamesSuckling.com?

A: I will be focusing on Australia but will also travel to Italy, France and other parts of the world with our team of tasters.

Stay tuned for all of Ned's contributions, as well as our coming reports on Beaujolais, Chile, Argentina and more...

– Vince Morkri, Managing Editor