About Katie

Katie Spain is a journalist, wine writer and author. She tells stories with heart.

For her efforts, she was named Wine Communicators of Australia’s 2021 Wine Communicator of the Year and won the award for Best Published Feature or Column.

In 2022 she was named 2022 Best Rural Journalist – Print – in the Rural Media Communicator Awards.

To earn a crust, she is the national drinks writer for GOOD FOOD (Sydney Morning Herald and The Age), feature writer for Australia’s Wine Business Magazine (WBM), and state editor (South Australia) for Gourmet Traveller. She is also the Australian correspondent for award-winning Swedish wine magazine Livets Goda.

Katie also writes books. To date, she is the author of The Wine Producers: Adelaide HIlls, The Wine Producers: McLaren Vale, The Wine Producers: Barossa (winner of Wine Communicators of Australia 2022 Best New Wine Book), Adelaide Central Market – Stories, People & Recipes, The Producers South Australia and Heart & Soul: 100 Australian Family Businesses, and co-author of The Highly Improbable Audacious Adventures of Wirra Wirra.

She wears colour (always), glitter (nearly always) and enjoys nothing more than a long chinwag with interesting people.

Katie is also an accredited celebrant. Get in touch if you need a story written or help tying the knot.

Katie's Background

Katie grew up on a dairy farm in South Australia but found her writing groove (and a serious thing for wine) in London where she worked in music, travel and West End theatre journalism, wrote a weekly column for The Australian Times newspaper and hosted a digital radio show in the backstreets of Shoreditch. She dabbled in Sydney’s world of commercial radio before heading back to Adelaide to concentrate on accumulating keyboard strokes (and tasting her way across the state).

She is the former journalist and wine writer at News Corp’s The Advertiser and Sunday Mail (deliciousSA), and feature writer for SAWeekend Magazine and the Adelaide* magazine.

Previously, Katie donned the editor hat for Broadsheet Adelaide, Fritz Magazine and G’Day Magazine. She was the 2017 Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show fellow and is a regular guest on 5AA and ABC radio.

She was also a co-author of The Highly Improbable Audacious Adventures of Wirra Wirra (winner of the 2019 Wine Communicator Awards Best Wine Book: Trade, Technical or Consumer) and was a top three finalist in the Australian Wine Communicator Awards (Best Published Column or feature) in 2019, 2020 and 2021. 

Katie hosts events and wine forums across Australia (including James Halliday’s 2020 Top 100 virtual event). She was the 2017 Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show fellow and was an Australian Wine Communicators mentor in 2019/2020/2021. 

If she’s not behind her keyboard she can usually be found scouring the country for stories (and cellar doors) in a tiny vintage caravan called Charlie. Either that, or hunting for treasure in op-shops. 

Katie Spain books

What Katie Does

Mostly, Katie writes about local treasures and ordinary folk with extraordinary lives but also has a thing for food, wine, good times and the odd creative side project involving wet paint.

Need a Celebrant?

As a Commonwealth Registered Civil Celebrant, I perform wedding ceremonies and help couples create their perfect, personalised day. Marriage equality is very important to me, as is authenticity.

As a natural born storyteller, it is very important to me that I capture your voices as well as your love.

I also perform wedding vow renewals, commitment ceremonies, baby naming ceremonies, funerals and memorials. No matter the occasion, your ceremony will be conducted with plenty of heart and ultimate professionalism.  

Choosing a celebrant is a very special moment in your life. My initial, no obligation face-to-face meeting is cost free.  More info at: katiespaincelebrant.com

“We could not have asked for a better celebrant. Katie was absolutely phenomenal, she spoke incredibly well and personalised our ceremony exactly the way we had hoped. We received so many compliments from our guests who were extremely impressed with Katie and how beautifully she ran the ceremony. We cannot thank her enough for making our ceremony incredibly special and something we will never forget.” – Sophie and James Canny, 2021