Max Allen has been writing about booze for 30 years. He is the wine and drinks columnist for the Australian Financial Review and Australian correspondent for JancisRobinson.com. For almost two decades he was the wine columnist for The Weekend Australian and wine editor of Australian Gourmet Traveller.
Allen is a two-time winner of the prestigious international André Simon Memorial Award -- first in 1998 with his first book Red and White, Wine Made Simple and again in 2020 for Intoxicating: ten drinks that shaped Australia. His latest book Alternative Reality: how Australian wine changed course was a finalist in the 2023 Wine Communicators of Australia Awards.
In 2011 The Future Makers: Australian wines for the 21st century was named Best International Wine Book at the Louis Roederer Wine Writers Awards in London; in 2013 Allen was awarded a State Library of Victoria Creative Fellowship; in 2016 he was inducted as a legend of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival; in 2018 he was named Wine Communicator of the Year; and in 2023 he received Cider Australia’s Champion of the Industry award.
Allen also teaches wine studies at the University of Melbourne, makes his own cider, plays mandolin, and is a practicing artist at the renowned Blender Studios.
