by Martin Field

Len Evans, that great man of Australian wine, died last week aged 75 years, of a heart attack. Len was a true ambassador and friend of the Australian wine industry here and overseas, a wine educator of note, a leading wine judge and an important wine writer.

I’m thankful to Len to this day as he was indirectly responsible for my early wine education. His Complete Book of Australian Wine (1973) was my most useful reference source when I began to take wine seriously. Back then I found it highly instructive to look up his tasting notes for nearly every wine I tasted, to better understand the wines I bought.

I met Len a few times over the years and he always had a joke or amusing anecdote to relate and always insisted on opening and sharing a bottle of good wine.

It seems appropriate to leave with one of Len’s many quotes: To make the most of the time left to you, you must start by calculating your total future capacity. One bottle of wine a day is 365 bottles a year. If your life expectancy is another thirty years, there are only 11,000 odd bottles ahead of you.