Andrew Caillard

The Climb

Wine work starts with method. Andrew Caillard’s training at Roseworthy Agricultural College gave him the practical base this trade rewards: a grounding in how to read the subject closely before speaking about it publicly. That discipline carried into Langton's in Australia (from 1989), where co-founding the business placed him in a part of the trade that asks for scholarship, commercial judgment, and the ability to distinguish signal from noise. Authority in wine is built over time, and his later years at Woolworths / Endeavour Group / Pinnacle Drinks in Australia (until 2023) show that kind of accumulation. As Fine Wine Principal, Andrew Caillard worked in a space where valuation, provenance, and context matter as much as the bottle itself. The work points to a career shaped by scrutiny: not treating wine as a label, but as a record of place, market, and history. Since 2023, Andrew has written and worked as an independent wine consultant, with the same emphasis on close reading carried into a more public-facing form. Since 2021, he has also been head of The Vintage Journal and founder of The Australian Ark Project, extending that trade discipline into research, record-keeping, and preservation. Those roles keep him inside the written and archival life of wine, where description, classification, and memory do practical work.

Today

Since 2023, he has written and worked as an independent wine consultant. The through-line is unchanged: wine deserves closer judgment than price alone can provide. That standard favors context over shorthand and asks the trade to account for detail, not just demand.

Signature

Andrew's signature dishes include The Australian Ark, Langton's Classification of Australian Wine, Penfolds the Rewards of Patience, Caillard Mataro, and Caillard Shiraz. The list reads as a working vocabulary for Australian fine wine: part classification, part authorship, part record. Across those titles, the craft is not presentation but structure—sorting, naming, and setting down what the trade needs to know.

In Their Words “Fine wine is conversation wine; something that promotes discussion and interest.” That line places fine wine in the realm of use, not display. For Andrew Caillard, the measure of a bottle is whether it prompts discussion, holds attention, and gives the table something to work with. It is a practical definition, rooted in exchange.

Recognition

Andrew's honors include André Simon Award (2025), World Gourmand Award for Best Wine Book in the World (2025), National Trust of NSW Heritage Award, Australian Wine Communicator's Award for Best New Wine Book, OIV President's Award, and Madame Lily Bollinger Medal for excellence in wine tasting (1993). Taken together, the awards mark two strands of recognition: the discipline of tasting and the discipline of writing. The Madame Lily Bollinger Medal for excellence in wine tasting (1993) sits early in that record, with the André Simon Award (2025) and World Gourmand Award for Best Wine Book in the World (2025) confirming a long run of notice across more than one part of the wine trade.