Professional Profile

Dr. Philip Norrie was born in Sydney, Australia in 1953. He was educated at Knox Grammar School in Sydney’s Upper North Shore, where he gained the History and Geography prizes each year. In his final year, he gained the distinction of the Sports and Studies prize for the best all rounder.

Dr. Norrie’s father was Mervyn Norrie, an Industrial Chemist, who attended Harvard University and became General Manager of Union Carbide Australasia, as well as Cofounder and Chairman of the Board of Memtec. In the late 1930’s Mervyn Norrie assisted Professor Lemburg, a haemotologist at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney, in the world’s first crystallization of an enzyme, when they isolated catalase.

In 1971 Dr. Norrie began his medical studies at the University of New South Wales, where he trained and did his internship at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney - famous as Australia’s Heart Transplant Hospital. After gaining his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degrees, Dr. Norrie gained an Australian Family Planning Association Certificate in 1980 and established his own solo family/general practice surgery in Sydney’s famous Northern Beaches Region.

In 1986, Dr. Norrie started to pursue his great interest in wine and health by researching the biographies of all the over 180 doctors in Australia, who have founded vineyards, resulting in a book called “Australia’s Wine Doctors”. (This extremely high proportion of doctors is unique to Australia).

From this basic research have come four other books, namely “Vineyards of Sydney”
in 1990, which re-wrote the history of Australia’s earliest wine industry, “Lindeman” in 1993, which was the official Company history of the Lindeman wine group, “Penfold” in 1994, the history of Australia’s largest wine company and “Leo Buring”, the history of Australia’s First Wine Authroity, published in 1996.

In 1992, Dr. Norrie became the first graduate from the newly formed History and Philosophy of Science Department at the University of Sydney (Australia’s oldest university), when he completed his research and wrote his thesis, “A study of original documents on Viticulture in Early New South Wales and the role of the Macleay Family 1788 to 1883” for a Master of Science degree.

In 1997 Dr. Norrie completed his second Master’s Degree, a Master of Social Science with Honours from Charles Sturt University. This one being more original research, resulting in a thesis titled “Leo Buring, his life and influence on Australia’s wine industry”.

Dr. Norrie’s has completed a Doctor of Philosophy on the history of wine as a medicine, through the ages including today’s research, and it also writes about all of Australia’s Wine Doctors, why they are unique to Australia and what contribution they have made to Australia’s Wine Industry.

In 2007 Dr. Norrie completeted an M.D. with his Thesis titled "An Account of Diseases in the Near East during the Bronze Age - an Historical View". He then went on to commence an MPhil at UNSW in 2015, writing a Thesis "The Role of Disease in the Demise of the Indus Valley Civilization"

Other papers written by Dr. Norrie include “Wine and Health - a new look at an Old Medicine”, “The Art of Sensible Drinking”, “Some Most Unusual Vineyards - The Vineyards in Australia’s Lunatic Asylums” and the booklet “Wine and Health”, which was published by McWilliam Wines. Dr. Norrie has now become the Australian Wine Industry’s unofficial medical spokesman, giving talks about wine and health as well as writing wine and health articles for the Australian Society of Wine Educators, the Australian Sommeliers Association, the Australian Wine Foundation and for the Hospitality Course of the New South Wales T.A.F.E. Technical Colleges. Dr. Norrie has also written regular wine columns for the Medical Observer Business, Winews, The Hong Kong Grapevine, the Australian Chinese Medical Asssociation Journal and Inside Wine.

Dr. Norrie is the Founder and President of the Australian Medical Friends of Wine Society, which he founded to counteract the growing anti-alcohol lobby in Australia. He is on the Editorial Board of the Robert Mondavi Mission in the U.S.A. and the Alcohol in Moderation Journal in the U.K. Dr. Norrie is also a member of the Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australian Historical Society, the Australian National Trust, the Wine Press Club of New South Wales, the Australian Society of the History of Medicine and the New South Wales Society of the History of Medicine.

In 1986, together with his wife Belinda, Dr. Norrie founded the boutique 50 acre vineyard, Pendarves Estate, from 75 acres of bush at Belford in the Lower Hunter Valley wine region, to the north of Sydney. Dr. Norrie is a direct descendent of Alexander Norrie who migrated from Aberdeen in Scotland with his wife and nine children in 1839. They settled at Gresford in the Hunter Valley where they owned the general store and would have supplied Dr. Lindeman with all his goods after he settled in the area in 1841.

Pendarves Estate is situated on the unique Belford Dome of Limestone, which gives excellent quality fruit, so much so that after the third vintage in 1993, Pendarves Estate was the Most Successful Exhibitor for the current vintage at the Hunter Small Winemakers Wine Show and in 1994 it was the Most Successful Exhibitor for white wines. White wine styles made include Semillon, Verdelho, Chardonnay and a Sauvignon Blanc-Semillon blend. Red wine styles are Pinot Noir, Chambourcin, Shiraz and a Cabernet-Merlot-Malbec blend. The 1992 vintage of this wine was described by James Halliday, Australia’s leading wine writer, as the best cabernet in Australia from a small vineyard.

1996 saw Pendarves Estate become the Most Successful Small Wine Producer-Grower at the Hunter Valley Boutique Winemakers Wine Show and have its verdelho voted the best in the Hunter Valley by Wine State magazine in their Hunter regional tasting. The 2003 Wine State tasting gave Pendarves two golds and six silvers.

In the last couple of years the Pendarves Chardonnay, Verdelho, Shiraz and Cabernet blend have all won trophies at the Hunter Valley Boutique Winemakers Wine Show. In 2003 Pendarves won three trophies at this show

Dr. Norrie’s latest wine related literary project is his “Wine and Health Diary” which fills a void for the wine consumer, because prior to this there was no such diary for wine lovers. Not only is it a functional diary for the year, but it also contains wine and medical history, weekly wine and health sayings and all the year’s wine events listed on the relevant days. Forewords have been written by Len Evans, Robert Mondavi, Oz Clarke and Jancis Robinson. 2000 saw the launch of two new books “Dr. Philip Norrie’s Advice on Wine and Health - Thinking and Drinking Health” along with “Wine and Health - A New Look at an Old Medicine”. Dr. Norrie has also rewritten the Wine and Health sections of the Oxford Companion to Wine for the editor Jancis Robinson and has contributed the chapter on the history of wine as a medicine in “Wine – A Scientific Exploration” the definitive scientific and medical reference book on the health aspects of wine published by the Royal Postgraduate Medical School at the University of London in 2003.

(Left: Sir James Hardy of Hardy's Wine, Dr. Philip Norrie and Mr Len Evans at the launch of Dr. Phillip Norrie's book "Vineyards of Sydney")

Dr. Norrie is also a lecturer and a Ph.D. research fellow in the wine course at the School of Food Sciences, Faculty of Food and Environmental Sciences, University of Western Sydney, Richmond focusing on wine and health. He has also helped in creating the wine and health display at Vinopolis, the new permanent ‘’city of wine’’ exhibition on the southern bank of the river Thames near Southwark Cathedral and is the only overseas member of the Vinopolis Wine Advisory Board. This display will complement his new wine and health books. Dr. Norrie currently has regular wine and health columns in the New Asia Cuisine and Wine Scene magazine; and Wine and Dine Magazine in Singapore; Australian Wine Selector magazine and Winestate Magazine in Australia, as well as Alcohol in Moderation and Wine World in U.K., Dr. Norrie is now also the wine and health “pro” for the internet site “Winepros”.

Mitchell Beazley (the world’s leading publishers of wine books) will publish Dr. Norrie’s latest book “A Guide to Wine and Health – a New Look at an Old Medicine” with contributions by Professor Curtis Ellison (Professor of Epidemiology at Boston University) and Professor Thomas Pinney (noted American Wine Historian). This book will basically convert Dr. Norrie’s PhD into an illustrated book about the history of wine as a medicine plus a summary of all the latest wine and health research and is due for world wide distribution in 2008.

Dr. Norrie uses his unique “The Wine Doctor” marketing concept to sell wine in Australia, Asia and Europe and also involves celebrity chefs as well; thus making a potent and unique combination of food, wine, medicine and history.

Two new projects now occupy Dr. Norrie’s time – his wine history short documentary series called “Uncorked – The History of Wine” which appears across Australia on “Good Health TV” and marketing the world’s first Resveratrol Enhanced Wine.This new antioxidant resveratrol enhanced wine now makes all other wines redundant from a health point of view.

Visit Dr. Norrie's other Wine Doctor website www.winedoctor.com.au