Who is 'The Wine-O'?

The 'Wine-O' is me, James Omond (pictured badly at right). I've been involved in the wine industry, in one way or another, for over 15 years. As a result, I've always been able to access wines cheaper than retail - through staff discounts working either for a retailer or a producer, or by buying selectively at auction. It guts me to pay full price for wine - particularly if I don't think the wine is great value. (It must be my Scottish heritage!) I set up The Wine-O to bring this approach to putting together mixed dozens - i.e. they will be mainly targetted at any everyday drinking dozen, and provide terrific value. Also because my mates have hounded me for years asking what the best buys are at the moment, can I get them something interesting at auction, etc etc. I also received quite a bit of feedback in the early days from people wanting cellaring reds in 6- or 12-packs, hence the cellaring alternative / addition to the mixed dozen.

Why trust 'The Wine-O'?

Dare I say it? Trust me, I'm a lawyer!

My day job is running my own legal practice, specialising in providing legal services to the wine industry.

I am also the wine writer for Australasian Legal Business (ALB), and occasional contributor to the "Money" section of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. Before that, I was the wine writer for Business Review Weekly (BRW) for a couple of years, and an occasional contributor to the Saturday Age.

As a result of these gigs, I get to a lot of wine tastings - I particularly try to go to ones with obscure or small wineries. This gives me the opportunity to taste a very broad cross section of wines which Joe Public often never gets the chance to see. This is another point of differentiation with my dozens, as people will be getting wines they may not even have heard of (and that isn't because they are a 'house brand' of one of the big wine clubs).

Of course, customers are relying on my palate in this case - and that's how my business started - with friends and colleagues who know what sort of wines I like and drink. From there, I've relied on word of mouth, and people sharing wines from me with their friends, rather than any schmick advertising.