Last spring, we found ourselves in Australia for the Wine Media Conference held in the Hunter Valley. Well really, last fall for us in October, but it was spring in Australia and the Southern Hemisphere. After the conference, we attended one of the sponsored post-conference tours to the Orange wine region. You might have seen our overview of this trip “2 days in Orange? Too little time for this beautiful Australian wine region!”

After arriving in the Orange region, our first stop was at Angullong Cellars in the village of Millthorpe. Our group was set up in the garden behind the historic bluestone stable that is now their tasting room and we were greeted with sparkling wine.

Welcome to Country

At this point we stopped as Michael Newman gave us a First Nation welcome in the Wiradjuri tongue which he then translated to English.

He began by teaching us the greeting Yiradhu Marang marang which translates roughly to “g’day”. He explained that typically elders would do “Welcome to Country”, and while he was “older” he was not an “elder”. None the less he gave us a traditional Welcome to Country greeting. This begins with extending respect to the Wiradjuri elders as well as beyond to elders of other nations that call this area home.

He then spoke his welcome in the Wiradjuri tongue, then at the end translated for us.