For many residents of Newcastle and the Hunter Valley, easy access to renowned cellar doors is an advantage that's a little undervalued. Wine that tourists travel interstate just to savour is, for all us, just a short drive down the road.
World-beating semillon? Illustrious shiraz? We live right alongside an abundance of the precious stuff.
But what if the wines you were after were on the other side of the world? It's a question that John Baker has answered in an unconventional and quite remarkable way. When I first heard that this former Newcastle boy, who then became one of Sydney's most eminent wine merchants, had written a book entitled Stalin's Wine Cellar, my first thought was that it must have been a metaphor.
I imagined that somewhere on his travels, across Europe en route to the fabled vineyards of Bordeaux, Baker must have met an overbearing, imperious sommelier. Or entered a cellar door presided over by tyrannical tastebuds. But Baker has somehow encountered more extraordinary characters than that. And when I say characters, I'm not just talking about the people.
If you've ever thought that a few gold stickers made your bottle of local semillon prestigious, or even precious, then think again. Even better, read Stalin's Wine Cellar and then start thinking about what really makes a valuable wine. Because tucked under the wrinkly heel of Russia, in the birthplace of the real Joseph Stalin, is where genuine illustriousness resides. It's down there, beneath the only winery in Georgia, that readers of this book will unearth their author - in a dank, cobwebbed cellar savouring the most precious drops of wine in the world; unveiled characters from forgotten French bottles that, it's been said, Stalin salvaged from a collection first amassed by Tsar Nicholas II.
"It was an experience that very few people would have," says Baker.
"To taste an 1899 Château Suduiraut and then for it to be exceptional was just marvellous. It wasn't an overly rich, pungent wine like a Château d'Yquem can be. It is a much more elegant wine. It was sublime and it was fantastic.
"The Suduiraut has a real finesse about it."
Decidedly less elegant, yet perhaps equally fantastic, was how Baker and his friend Kevin Hopko eventually managed to gain access to such a selection. Aside from how fortunate they were to handle these delicious antiquities, the book tells the story of a treacherous journey into an untamed, newly-formed nation. Racing through the capital in a black Mercedes, flanked by self-styled mobsters bristling with pistols, Baker and Hopko weren't exactly having a long lunch at Lovedale.
But as much as their trip to Georgia proved a challenge, from a wine buyer's standpoint, it was also a healthy dose of fun. And it's that unlikely concoction of business and spirit, of danger and discovery, that most boldly underlines this tale.
Stalin's Wine Cellar invites you along to an enigmatic pursuit of the rare and the exquisite but it isn't simply about wine. As much as it, too, took us into exotic caverns by torchlight, Indiana Jones isn't really about archaeology.
"It was an incredible adventure," recalls Baker. "Talk about adventure holidays.
"You couldn't buy a ticket to this one.
"It was a fantastic experience and a fantastic part of the world to go to. I love Eastern Europe because it's just so very different.
"We were there on a real mission. We had a real purpose. It was incredible. And we ended up with this book! That's probably more surprising than anything else."
Yet after reading this story it becomes obvious that such a detailed and compelling account could in no way have happened by accident. Alongside his co-author, the Melbourne writer Nick Place, Baker credits the book's completion not only to his obvious passion for wine, but also to good old-fashioned persistence.
"I've worked hard," says Baker.
"A lot of the things that have gone well for me can be attributed to effort."
And to where does a jet-setting wine merchant attribute his work ethic? To a place near where the semillon still waves from the podium.
"A friend of mine once told me that Newcastle people are the good people," he remembers.
"They know how to work hard."
