To the Max

The phone buzzed annoyingly at my work desk. I suggested to my colleague seated next to me that she pick it up because the likelihood of it being for me was slim.

To my surprise, five seconds into her telephone conversation she handed me the receiver, “There’s a Max wishing to speak to you.”

Max is quite the distinctive name. There are not that many famous people with the moniker, unless you consider the American Max Factor of the cosmetics company. My head quickly reeled through the people I know and the only one who I could safely assume was on the other end was fellow wine industry person, wine writer and mandolin virtuoso, Max Allen.

I put the receiver to my ear and said, “Hello. Krystina speaking.”

Max Allen’s distinguishable voice answered back, “Krystina, it’s Max.”

“Oh hey Max. How you doing? What can I do for you?“

“Well you see, I’m doing this story because, well, that’s what I do, you know – I write. Basically I’m doing this piece on the accessibility of older wines to people today and I wanted the perspective of someone who is in wine, drinks a fair bit of wine, and is young… Do you think…you … would be… the right person…to talk to?“

I thought about that statement: I work with wine, I drink my fair share of wine, and I suppose in industry terms I’m a young ‘un.

“Yes, I would be,” came a little too quickly out of my mouth.

What transpired over the next ten minutes was plenty of discussion on the topic and a brief interview over the phone.

Two weeks later and here is Max’s well-written article called ‘Drinking In The Past’ in The Australian newspaper with commentary by Andrew Caillard of Langton’s on the auction front plus the perspective from yours truly.

Tags: Article, Journalist, Newspaper, press, Quote, The Australian, Wine, Writing