On the road

Vintner Damon de Ruiter spends much of the year travelling to remote parts of Australia, selling his homegrown wines.

Story Gabrielle Hall  Photos John Kruger

Damon de Ruiter is up before dawn. Coffee in hand, he walks to the water’s edge at Coffin Bay National Park on SA’s Eyre Peninsula, where pelicans and cormorants crash in for breakfast as a pod of dolphins pushes a school of fish towards shore. Turning back, three emus casually cruise past.

“If you want to see things, you have to get up before daylight,” Damon says. “As the sun comes up the whole world wakes up – the birds and animals – and that’s when the magic happens.”

It is a long way from his leafy vineyard in SA’s famous Barossa wine region, but for much of the year, scenes like this are the backdrop to Damon’s office. Most days, that means kilometres on the road in his ute, sleeping in a rooftop camper and pulling into towns, pubs and roadhouses other wine reps rarely reach.

It is an R.M.Williams boots-on-the-ground way of doing business and is what sets Damon and his Outlaw Wines brand apart. “My motto is, I grow it, I make it and I sell it,” he says.

Last year, Damon clocked up 65,000km across Australia.