Better than before

Adam has a big-picture way of looking at things. The chief winemaker at Taylors (called Wakefield Wines in Europe, the UK and North America) sees his role as bigger than just making its wine.

“Winemakers have to have many hats,” he says. “You have to be a good role model. You have to lead people. You have to understand consumers.”

Understanding what people want is central to Adam’s success. As a young up-and-coming winemaker, he once met the legendary Wolf Blass – founder of the famous Wolf Blass winery – who told Adam never to forget the consumer. 

“Winemakers can sometimes get lost a little bit and do things just for winemakers,” he says.

Keeping customers front of mind has always been the driving force at Taylors, a family-owned business that’s won trophies for its wines at all price points, from entry level to high end. Since joining Taylors two decades ago, Adam has consistently pushed quality and innovation further.

“I know it sounds really geeky, but you can actually write our winemaking philosophy as a mathematical formula,” he says. “It is to be equal to, or greater than, before.”

Adam takes a global view, looking at the world’s best wines and then striving to improve on them. He uses the Olympics as an analogy.

“People go in the Olympic Games to compete with the world’s best – and that’s our approach,” he says. “Australia makes wonderful wines, but increasingly we are benchmarking globally. If there were wine Olympics, we’d definitely be lining up to compete.”

In 2018, Taylors’ ‘The Visionary’ Cabernet Sauvignon 2014 was named World’s Best Cabernet at the Concours International des Cabernets (International Competition of Cabernets) in France.

“When you achieve excellence in wine, you feel some personal pride, but more importantly you feel pride for the broader community,” says Adam. “You feel pride for Australia, which is a cool thing.”

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