Celebrity Profiles
McClurg, Victoria
The Barossa Valley Cheese Company is a labour of love for Victoria McClurg. First trained as a winemaker, Victoria spent a season making wine in Bordeaux, absorbing the region's way of life and regard for food and wine. As she mused over a glass of wine, accompanied by an array of handmade cheese, Victoria realised what she really wanted to do. Her course was set - she learned the art of cheesemaking and brought her new found passion home to the Barossa, Australia's most famous wine region.
The Barossa Valley Cheese Company opened its doors in March 2003 in the idyllic Barossa town of Angaston, rapidly claiming its place in the region's celebrated wine and food culture. Since then, the range has expanded to 14 different styles of cheese and the awards have been prolific. But Victoria insists that BVCC will not stray from its artisan ethos and become an industrialised factory. “We will always be an artisan producer, sourcing milk from local dairies and creating cheese imbued with the character of the locale and passion of the maker.” The Barossa Valley Cheese Company's range now includes cow and goat milk cheeses, with Victoria and her small team always seeking innovative ideas and refining traditional methods in cheesemaking. Their washed rind cheese has become a specialty, receiving a number of top awards in artisan cheese competitions.
McNamara, Mark
Mark commenced his cooking career in Adelaide in 1977 and is currently the Executive Chef of Appellation in the Barossa Valley.
Graduating as Dux in commercial cookery from Regency TAFE in 1982 he moved to the UK to work in premium resorts and hotels. He returned to Adelaide where he oversaw the running of many of Adelaide’s finest kitchens including 4 years as Executive Chef of legendary restaurant “The Drumminor”.
Mark and his wife Jo-Ann moved to the Barossa in 1993 opening and running the highly successful Pear Tree Cottage restaurant in Greenock for 7 years. From 2001 he lectured in wine and food with TAFE SA at the Barossa Valley campus and with Le Cordon Bleu in Adelaide and is a graduate in gastronomy from Adelaide University.
A founding member of Food Barossa and early supporter of the Barossa Farmers Market he was also a member the Barossa culinary team feted as gold medal winners of the 2003 Tasting Australia regional culinary competition.
In January 2005 Mark joined with Jim and Helen Carreker to open Appellation and The Louise in Marananga.
In 2005 Mark was inducted as a Baron of Barossa and currently holds the position of Food Master on the Grand Council.
Since 2006 Appellation has been regarded as the best regional restaurant in South Australia and is today acclaimed as one of the top 50 restaurants in the country.
Mercurio, Paul
It all started at the age of nine when Paul first told his mum that he wanted to learn
to dance. Encouraging of her young son, Paul went on to study classical ballet, jazz,
tap and vaudeville, and then at thirteen he joined an amateur theatre group and
studied the various disciplines of theatre for fours years. Combining these two
disciplines has informed and shaped his career as a performer, a choreographer and
as a director ever since.
Paul’s career has been one of diversity. The first stage was very much focused on
dance and choreography. From 1982 – 1992 he toured extensively around Australia
and the world, performing and choreographing with Sydney Dance Company where he
was principal dancer for ten years. He formed his own dance company Australian
Choreographic Ensemble in 1992 for which he directed, choreographed and danced.
Paul’s choreographic credits include more than thirty dance works for stage and television,
well actually 33 if you don’t include the television commercials. He was awarded the Mo
Award for Dance Performer of the year 1992.
He contributed choreography on “Strictly Ballroom” and has also choreographed 4
other feature films, the last one being Will Smith’s mega blockbuster “I Robot” for
which Paul choreographed the robots. He was nominated in 2004 for a Helpmann
award for his choreography for the musical “Annie Get Your Gun” but was pipped at
the post by “The Producers”.
The second stage has been focused on the film and television industry where Paul has
made a mark as an actor, being nominated for an AFI award and a Logie and working
with such notables as Ben Kingsley, Martin Landowne, Christian Slater and others. He
has appeared in fourteen US and Australian feature films and countless hours of
television spanning the drama, comedy and lifestyle genres, including guest
appearances in some of Australia’s most loved TV series, such as “Water Rats”,
“Medivac”, “Heartbreak High”, “Blue Heelers”, “All Saints” and most recently Seven’s
top rating drama “City Homicide”.
Paul is well known for his time on "Dancing with the Stars" in Australia and New
Zealand and also hosted three series of his own food and travel series, "The Food
Trail" and "Mercurio's Menu". He has completed and screened his second series of
"Mercurio's Menu", on the Seven Network, where Paul traveled across Australia and
New Zealand meeting the locals and using fresh produce to cook up a storm.
“Mercurio’s Menu” has had significant success with a peak audience of 1,016,000 and
both series have broadcasted in New Zealand on the Lifestyle channel. He is now
currently filming series 3.
In between shooting series for “Mercurio’s Menu”, Paul managed to squeeze in
another series of “Dancing with the Stars” in New Zealand, and joined their Judging
Panel once again for the 2009 series.
He has just launched his very first cookbook ‘Mercurio’s Menu’ in Australia and New
Zealand and he is now working on a beer cookbook, which requires a lot of enjoyable
but necessary research.
In between acting engagements, choreographic engagements, speaking
engagements, teaching engagements, hosting engagements and other, you know...
engagements, he is constantly developing and nurturing other interests in his life,
the most important being his wife and three daughters. There is more that could be
said about Paul and there is more to come but importantly his cholesterol levels
remain low and he is enjoying life!
Milan, Lyndey
Lyndey Milan food and wine communicator, TV personality and author. Contributing Food Director for The Australian Women’s Weekly, she is a well known face in print, radio and on television. Her forte is presenting seemingly complicated ideas in an easy, straight-forward and entertaining manner. She has energy, passion, laughter and infectious enthusiasm, a communicator with a practical as well as an academic interest in food, wine and lifestyle.
