Until 2020 Evan was up to his ears in percussion instruments, working as an orchestral musician with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and on staff at Camberwell Grammar School, teaching drums and percussion. However, all this time he was a harbouring a dark secret. He wanted desperately to escape the glitz and glamour of the Concert Halls of the world and get into the murky depths of fermenting grapes and learn to become a winemaker. Even before putting down roots in Heathcote in 2007, Evan had flirted with the idea of growing grapes and making wine, helping out with vintage at various wineries in the Coonawarra and King Valley. It wasnʼt long before the intoxicating allure of CO2 and sulphur was enticing him back. He enrolled in a viticulture course and began studying winemaking, with an eager impatience to get back to nature and try to produce something out of nothing. The arrival of the COVID pandemic in 2020 caused the cancellation of all impending orchestral concerts, and was the stick that finally broke the drum, so Evan decided to finally hang up the triangle and get to work!
Wendy’s passion for food began during childhood around the family table, but she cut her teeth professionally in the kitchens of London in the 1990s, working as head chef in a French style bistro in Islington for many years. On her return to Melbourne she set up a catering business, with a focus on nutritious and delicious food, servicing what was then the Melbourne College of Natural Medicine. Wendy swapped her knives for chalk in 2002 and has spent the past 20 years in the secondary and tertiary education sectors, teaching mostly Psychology (along with Health, Food Technology, Positive Education, Careers and more). Wendy’s passion for food took an academic turn when she qualified as a nutritionist, and she has since incorporated this knowledge into her approach to food. The garden at 3DE is ever-expanding, enabling Wendy to include home grown produce where possible in the dishes she produces from Mudstone Ridge Kitchen
