Search
This area does not yet contain any content.
Justinian News

Fresh upsets ... Hunt & Hunt writes to a judge ... Unwarranted correspondence slapped down ... Failure to reply to email from judge's chambers ... Impertinence ... ART Deputy President birched ... Failure to understand the law of legal professional privilege ... Ginger Snatch reports ... Read more >>

 

Politics Media Law Society


The rotten fruit issue ... Corruption busters busted for bias, concealment, and conflicts … Mistress of the office couch more damaged than the rape victim … Next round for Linda Reynolds … Reputation damaged by former attorney general … Miranda Devine smooches Trump ... Read on >> 

This area does not yet contain any content.
Free Newsletter
Justinian Columnists

From the cutting room floor...Handsy Heydon goes to Perth ... Celebrity tour ... Conferenceville ... Dicey's job application speech from 2002 ... Other High Court judges mocked as "vegetables" ... Mason CJ ridiculed ... Speech bowdlerised for public consumption ... Courage of conviction MIA ... From our National Affairs Correspondent ... Read more >> 

Blow the whistle

 

News snips ...


 

Lib-Nat government of Queensland appoints two new senior judges ... Court of Appeal and Northern Supreme Court ... Doyle KC and Johnstone KC ... Both from the same chambers ... Diversity at work ... More >>

Justinian's Bloggers

Letter from London ... Weather report ... Starmer sinking ... Farage rising ... Fake law firm ... Fake cases ...  NHS employee cleans up with woke case for hurt feelings ... Floyd Alexander-Hunt files from Blighty ... Read more >> 

"If there’s one family that hasn’t profited off politics, it's the Trump family."

Eric Trump, reported in the Financial Times, June 27, 2025 ... Read more flatulence ... 


Justinian Featurettes

Holding onto Hope ... Gina Rinehart's Bleak House ... Seeking chunks of the huge iron ore pit, Hope Downs ... Tracing the tangled Wright, Hancock, Rinehart litigation ... Allegations of fraud against the family trust ...Manoeuvring ... Tax "advice" ... Shifting vesting date ... Money, the root of unhappiness ... Anthony-James Kanaan reports ... Read more >> 


Justinian's archive

The High Court of Queensland ... Where to now for Bookshelves Brandis? ... Banana Benders in charge ... Eleven names scratched by CJ from Sunshine silks list ... Prosecutors dominate NSW Dizzo appointments ... Farewell to Equity Queen ... What life looked like nine years ago ... From Justinian's Archive, December 2, 2016 ... Read more >> 


 

 

« David Jackson QC | Main | Top End trauma »
Thursday
Feb272020

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

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.
Editor Permission Required
You must have editing permission for this entry in order to post comments.