‘Some of My Best Friends are Winemakers’ by Gil Walquist will be launched on Tuesday September 5 at Craigmoor/Wild Oats Café by Laura Kurtz.

Laura is the widow of Mudgee wine legend Alf Kurtz, producer of the first chardonnay in Australia.

Ex-journalist, Gil Walquist began the legendary Botobolar vineyard in the early 1970s and work on the book started in 1980. At that point the project stalled until Drew Stein of Stein’s Wines approached Gil on behalf of the promotions committee of the Grapegrowers Association for a wine history of the area.

As Gil says “Here is the history that had to wait.

“It has taken me the past two years to finish it and it’s hard to believe that with the rich history of the Mudgee wine industry, this is the first book of its type to be written.

“There is an enormous amount of research in the book which traces the industry back to its first days in the 1800s up to 2000.

“We owe a lot to the German immigrants who started producing wine in the 1950s.

“The discovery of chardonnay in the late 1960s at Craigmoor vineyard was a springboard for the Mudgee wine industry and the vineyard became the source block for much of the chardonnay produced around Australia,” Mr Walquist said.

According to Mr Walquist Mudgee wine has a lot of firsts.

“We were the first region to promote wine outside Australia and, of course, Botobolar was the first organic vineyard.

“It is fitting that the release of the book coincides with the 150th anniversary of Mudgee wine,” he said.

Mr Walquist is generously donating profits from book sales to the Mudgee Wine Grape- growers’ promotional fund.

There will be a Sydney launch of the book later in the year by wine writer and Mudgee fan, Huon Hook at Cucina di Lusso in Glebe.

The Mudgee Guardian will print weekly excerpts from Gil’s book during the Wine Festival in September.