I've been thinking about influence.

When we admire someone, it's natural to study what they've done.

We read their books.

We taste their wines.

We learn from their experience.

But there comes a point where learning has to give way to something else.

You have to stop asking how to become them.

And start asking how to become yourself.

That's what struck me about Natalie Fryar.

Like so many Australian winemakers before her, she travelled to Champagne.

She worked in one of the world's great wine regions.

She learnt from people whose families had been making Champagne for generations.

She could easily have returned home determined to recreate what she'd seen.

Instead, she came back with a different question.

"What does Tasmania have to say?"

I think that's a far more interesting question.

Natalie didn't begin with tradition.

She began with place.

Her wines aren't trying to imitate Champagne.

They're trying to express Tasmania.

That's why she chose Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

Not because Champagne does.

Because she believed those varieties best reflected the vineyards she was working with.

She didn't feel obliged to include Meunier simply because history suggested she should.

She chose the grapes that spoke most honestly of her own place.

I admire that.

It takes confidence to learn from the world's best without feeling the need to become them.

The more I've thought about Bellebonne, the more I've realised that identity isn't something you invent.

It's something you uncover.

It comes from understanding who you are and being willing to trust it.

I've found myself thinking about that as Luxe Maha continues to grow.

It's very easy to look around and wonder whether your website should sound like everyone else's.

Whether your social media should follow the latest trends.

Whether your events should look like every other wine dinner.

For a while, I thought they probably should.

Then I realised something.

If Natalie Fryar had spent her career trying to recreate Champagne, Bellebonne would never have become Bellebonne.

It would simply have become another imitation.

Instead, she listened to Tasmania.

Perhaps that's the lesson.

The people we admire most don't ignore those who came before them.

They learn from them.

Then they find their own voice.

That's what I've been trying to do with Luxe Maha.

I want to keep learning from Champagne.

I'll never stop doing that.

Champagne has shaped the way I think about excellence, hospitality and patience.

But I don't want Luxe Maha to become another Champagne website.

I want it to become unmistakably Luxe Maha.

A place where people arrive expecting to learn about sparkling wine.

And leave thinking about the remarkable people whose ideas changed it.

Every time I pour Bellebonne now, I don't just think about Tasmania.

I think about the courage it takes to stop asking,

"What would everyone else do?"

And start asking,

"What feels true to me?"

Perhaps that's the question every business eventually has to answer.

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