Uncorked: Episode 7 - Tour, Pour, Explore.
Welcome to Episode 7 of Uncorked, the Cult Wines podcast. Tom Gearing, Co-founder and CEO, is joined by Jonathan Stevenson, EVP of Cult Wines North America, with special guest Han Lian, wine influencer, storyteller, and ambassador whose path runs from China to Australia, France and now London.
Together they talk about how people fall for wine, how learning shapes confidence, where curiosity leads next, and how to think about drinking, saving, and trading across styles and regions.
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What topics were covered?
Han’s Origin Story
Han’s wine switch flipped in Burgundy. Living in Melbourne at the time, she already enjoyed the city’s wine culture, but her first encounter with white Burgundy in her former father-in-law’s cellar near Meursault changed everything. She describes a real sense of chemistry with the wine that sent her down the rabbit hole, from tastings to a growing curiosity about winemaking choices and how they shape what ends up in the glass.
For Han, wine is an agent for experiences. Australia’s weekend vineyard trips soon became journeys (much) further afield. The draw is part culture, part landscape, part conversation with the people behind the bottles.
Tom and Jonathan share their views, recalling how seeing wine regions in person can rewire your sense of minerality, slope, and style.
Travel Changes the Palate
Seeing vineyards first-hand changes how wines make sense in the glass. The team talk about how travel resets your expectations. Standing on the slopes above the Mosel sharpens your feel for Riesling’s line and energy. A few days in the Jura puts its style into context and adds it to the watch list for future exploring. The Canary Islands, particularly Tenerife, are called out for distinct, characterful whites that make more sense once you have seen the landscape.
The team then discuss examples of their favourite regions that are highlighted as touchpoints for style and direction.
Across all of this, the point is simple. Travel gives you scale and place, tasting in situ, meeting growers, and seeing how wines are served locally changes how you judge acidity, texture, and weight when you are back at home.
Game On! Drink, Save or Trade
A fun segment in this episode is a quickfire exercise that helps listeners think about priorities in a cellar. The format is simple: Each round presents three options. For each set, you choose one to drink now, one to save for later, and one to trade to fund something else.
The rounds covered include:
- Sparkling wine: Champagne, English sparkling, Prosecco.
- Reds by style and region: Bordeaux, Super Tuscan, Napa Cabernet.
- Top Burgundy producers: Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Comte Liger-Belair, Domaine Leroy.
- Iconic bottles: Masseto, Petrus, Screaming Eagle.
The group talk through how to approach the choices, what to weigh up for each category, and why the answer can shift with mood, budget, and plans. Play along with us, do you agree with the team’s views? Let us know.
Closing Notes
Episode 7 shows us that wine is bigger than scores and spreadsheets. It is curiosity, travel, and conversation. Han’s travel stories add colour, while the chat widens to the places, bottles and choices that shape a cellar.
There are also practical takeaways. How does studying build confidence in wine, without removing the joy? How to use travel to calibrate your taste. How to think about icons, grower names, and value in the same breath. For the whole back-and-forth, all the bottles referenced, and many more stories that did not make it into this summary, tune in to the episode on your favourite platform below.
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