To hear Jen Latta talk so eloquently about wine and winemaking, you might assume she’d been embedded in the industry since birth. But, in an encouraging sign for any of us who can find the whole wine thing overwhelming or intimidating, the owner of winespeake, Daylesford’s excellent wine bar, bottle shop and deli, started from a self-confessed “very low base”.

Of course, marrying Owen Latta, winemaker at lauded Macedon region wineries Eastern Peake and Latta Vino, didn’t hinder her journey of wine enlightenment. In fact, it started it.

“I had absolutely no experience with wine before I met Owen,” says Jen. “We met when I was 20 and still drinking wine out of boxes. I grew up in a teetotaling family, so I had zero relationship with it and zero understanding of the farming and producing behind making wine. When I first met Owen, he told me he was a winemaker and brought me a bottle of Eastern Peake chardonnay. I was living in a share house in Melbourne at the time and I poured a glass and then got some orange juice and mixed that in and of course there was a look of horror on his face. So I can say he taught me a lot, starting with not adding orange juice.”

It was a swift education. The couple moved into the region in 2012 and in 2013 opened a small wine shop in Vincent Street called Wine and the Country, ostensibly an urban cellar door for Owen’s wines. But Jen soon began to include wine that their friends were making, then labels from other local vineyards and then “wines we love to drink from all over the world”. They also opened a deli next door that had a similar approach of benchmarking locally-made produce – cheese in particular – against the best from around the globe.

In 2020, they decided to amalgamate the two stores into one, moving into the former IGA supermarket site, renaming the business winespeake and adding a 40-seat wine bar to the equation for customers to enjoy a glass from the shelves with a snack (their incredible toasted sandwiches have something of a cult following) created from the deli case.

Jen is meticulous about employing staff who genuinely enjoy and understand the product they’re selling. The current crew includes local winemakers and sommelier Jez Shiell dispensing switched-on advice.

“This reflects my own introduction to wine that was more about meeting Owen’s friends and family who were all growers and producers so that I met the people and understood about their story before I learned about wine specifically,” says Jen. “For me it has always been about showcasing what producers are doing in the area rather than it being about a wine doing a specific thing or tasting a specific way. It’s about showcasing the excellent products from the region and we couldn’t do that properly without an excellent team.”

While there’s a definite lean to minimal intervention winemaking at winespeake, reflecting Owen Latta’s approach, there is no hard and fast rule in place, other than a “belief in the product” and a desire to introduce customers to varieties of wine they may not have tried before.

“Since we opened back in 2013, I’ve noticed that people are more curious and adventurous about what they’re willing to try,” says Jen. “We want winespeake to be a place where our customers feel comfortable exploring, knowing that we’re always stocking the best this incredible region has to offer.”