About the Owner
For many years Karen was embarrassed about her love of wine! She even thought she was a bit weird, having such an interest at her age.
There was nothing she loved more than to tootle off into the country side on a wine tasting jaunt........Long before she admitted her love of the grape, wine tours seemed to appear on travel itineraries and in her spare time on weekends.....repeatedly.
Growing up in regional Australia's foodie capital Mildura, and being surrounded by vineyards in her early years obviously had a big impact on her direction.
Wine regions around Mildura, The Yarra Valley, various regions throughout South Australia, the Granite Belt in northern NSW, the Tamar region in Tassie, Wairapara of New Zealand, the Napa Valley in the USA, Stellenbosch in South Africa were all visited long before the passion was let lose!
But the good news is that Karen's over the embarrassment now and all this experience your benefit!
A self confessed wine lover, in mid 2008 she combined her passion and profession to create Food and Wine Travel for like minded independent travelers - certainly the newest trend in travel today.
And the foodie thing? Well, Karen is known far and wide for saying 'Good food follows good wine. Bad food in wine regions is impossible. It's like an ugly vineyard -it just doesn't exist.' says Karen. 'If you're a wine lover, you can't help but be a food lover. The two are inextricably linked'.
About The Business
100% owner of Food and Wine Travel, Karen Ridge is not new to the travel industry, nor to business ownership. This is in fact her third business and says 'this is it' for the rest of her life.
Karen owned her first travel agency, Jetset Mildura between 1993 and 2003, beginning in the industry when she was just 21 years old. That business turned into one of regional Australia’s travel agency success stories.
During her time at Jetset Mildura Karen was awarded numerous national and industry awards for sales, marketing innovation and business success, as well as being twice nominated for the Telstra Business Women’s Awards. She was a finalist for the award in 2001 at the age of 29.
After a short stint outside of travel (which she claims are the dullest of her life) as owner of a Marketing company, Karen moved to Melbourne late 2006. She re-entered the industry and began to create Food and Wine Travel.
