I'd like to introduce you to the funniest person I have ever met. A big statement I know, but truly I laugh so hard my chest hurts every time I chat to this woman.
Marnie Roberts is a owner/winemaker at Matriarch and Rogue in the Clare Valley in South Australia. As well as her quick wit and dry sense of humour, she makes beautiful wine, carving quite a following in wine circles and beyond.
She is originally from Mildura, growing up on a block with her parents and older brother Tony, where they grew citrus, dried fruit and wine grapes. She hated every minute of it. Little did she know, she would be as busy as a termite in a sawmill running her own successful wine enterprise 30 years later.
She crossed the border and set up stumps in the Clare Valley back in 2008. Six years later, she established her own label, Matriarch and Rogue, inspired by her dear old Nanna.
I sat down with Marnie in her shed on a cold wintry day with the rain pounding on the roof, sharing a subway salad and a bottle of her finest red. Marnie describes herself as a floater, never had a solid plan and was never really overly ambitious either. She doesn't really sell herself very well, does she? But trust me, she is one talented lady.