Meg Wallace, Winemaker
Growing up along the South coast of NSW, Meg was more interested in the beach than Agriculture. After years spent living the city life, the last thing Meg expected was to find herself living and working in rural NSW and Victoria.
At eighteen, Meg fell into a job working at the local pub while studying. It wasn’t long until she ditched Uni and found herself in Sydney, where she spent most of her 20’s bouncing around hospitality venues in the City and Circular Quay. Always having an appreciation and interest in food and wine (and let’s face it, booze in general), it wasn’t until Meg moved to London and spent some time travelling around Europe, that she really started to take notice of this appreciation. Quite serendipitously, the day after she arrived in London, Meg wandered into a wine bar tucked away by a beautiful little church yard, not far from London Bridge. She landed a job on the spot and worked there for 2 years, taking off for little adventures around Europe whenever possible. During this time, she was exposed to some incredible wines. A whole new world was opened to her. Teamed with some travelling through Europe and an amazing homestay spent with a friend and her family in Tuscany, Meg’s curiosity was well and truly piqued.
Arriving back in Australia in 2011, Meg settled back into Sydney life, but late nights and hospitality had lost some of its sparkle and she decided to make the move to rural NSW to be closer to family. A friend was studying Winemaking at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga, who slung Meg some of her study notes – and the rest is history!
While studying, Meg worked for five years at Tumblong Estates, Gundagai, as Assistant Winemaker under Paul Bailey. Although predominantly working with Shiraz and Cabernet, year after year, Meg found herself drawn to the smaller parcels of Italian varieties, such as Sangiovese, Nebbiolo and Barbera.
One day at work during a benchmark tasting Meg was bowled over by the 2016 Billy Button Nebbiolo. She gave Jo a cheeky ‘follow’ on Instagram and watched this energetic winemaker in the Alpine Valleys, make small batch alternate varieties – with a black Labrador and ‘miniature’ pig as sidekicks – and often joked that it would be a great place to do a vintage!
Graduating with a Bachelor of Wine Science in 2018, Meg parted ways with Tumblong Estates for a new adventure. After her time at Tumblong and a vintage at Agnew Wines in the Hunter Valley, Meg had an inkling that she wanted to work in a smaller operation, with a focus on small batch winemaking.
Late in 2018 the vintage position she had lined up fell through and Meg found herself on the hunt for a last-minute vintage job. Early 2019, on a long drive back from holidays in Adelaide, Meg was discussing options for the new year with her partner and while aimlessly scrolling Instagram, she stumbled across a post advertising a vintage position at Billy Button Wines. Stars aligned! Meg joined the Billy Button team for vintage 2019 and has never left.