RIP Mighty Mouse

Hazel Murphy - marketing marvel for Australian wine in the UK and Europe ... Obit from Justinian's wine correspondent Gabriel Wendler ... Bron Waugh became a believer ... "Chateau Chunder" rendered obsolete  

Hazel Murphy, affectionately known  as "Mighty Mouse" died in England in late December last year. She was 71 years of age.

I dare say most wine enthusiasts are not immediately familiar with the life and astonishing wine industry achievements of Hazel Murphy.

She joined the Australian Trade Commission in 1972. Ultimately she was elevated to chief executive of the Australian Wine Bureau in 1985. For some 45 years she enthusiastically  promoted Australian wines in the UK and Europe.

In 1996 she was awarded the Order of Australia and the Maurice O'Shea Award  in recognition of her indefatigable marketing of Australian wines in the UK. 

It is argued Hazel singlehandedly grew Australian wine exports from $A1.4 million AUD in 1985 to $A897 million by 2002. Although her success in the area of Australian wine promotion was recognised she was utterly disinterested in adulation. 

James Halliday reported that Hazel Murphy "... in less than a decade poured Australian wine for 250,000 people in venues ranging from food exhibitions to sporting events".

Hazel Murphy: poured Australian wine down a quarter of a million throats

In the 1990s she arranged promotional trips for wine critics and wine industry executives to the vineyards of Australia. On one of these trips she invited the controversial writer and wine critic Auberon "Bron" Waugh - eldest son of the novelist Evelyn Waugh.

"Bron" was a clever snob who seriously believed that:

"Generally speaking the best people nowadays go into journalism, the second best into business, the rubbish into politics and the shits into law." 

Waugh was notorious for inventing weird and crazy descriptions of wine, for example, a particular Spanish wine reminded him of "a bunch of dead chrysanthemums on the grave of a stillborn West Indian baby".

He famously described one Australia wine as "banging like a shit-house door in a gale". 

Hazel Murphy was responsible for Waugh's wine experience in Australia and his admiration for all styles of red and white Australian wines. He often recommended them in his Spectator wine column.

Her funeral wish was to keep it simple and to raise a glass, presumably of Australian wine,  in her honour. 

From Gabriel Wendler, 7 Windeyer Chambers, Sydney