From Canada’s snow to sunny future in Hunter

Jeff Byrne came to Australia in 1995 with a backpack, a love of Caribbean rum and, bizarrely, a love of surfing. Bizarrely because in his homeland of Canada – he’s from Halifax, Nova Scotia – temperatures can regularly plummet to between minus 10 and minus 30 Celsius. Average snowfall is more than 150cm a year. Fast forward 21 years and he’s one of the Hunter Valley’s bright young winemakers, in charge of not one, but three labels … Audrey Wilkinson, Poole’s Rock and Cockfighter’s Ghost.