WINE, CRIME & A KING’S COUNSEL WALK INTO A WINERY.

There are worse ways to spend a Saturday afternoon than drinking Victorian wine while listening to two people who have spent decades inside the stories that usually end up on the front page.

On Saturday 29 August, Jamsheed Urban Winery in Preston is hosting Wine & Crime, bringing investigative journalist and author Adam Shand together with veteran criminal barrister Philip Dunn KC for an afternoon of true crime, untold stories and, naturally, wine.

It’s the second outing for the Wine & Crime series following its debut at Stanley Pub in July, where Shand unpacked stories from his decades reporting on Australia’s underworld. This time, the format gets an interesting twist: putting the reporter opposite the defence.

Shand has spent close to four decades working across television, print and audio, turning his attention to crime reporting in the late ’90s. His work has taken him deep into Melbourne’s gangland wars, corruption within Victoria Police and some of Australia’s most notorious criminal cases. He’s also written six true crime books, including Big Shots: Carl Williams and the Gangland Wars and The Skull: Informers, Hit Men and Australia’s Toughest Cop.

Across from him will be Philip Dunn KC, a Melbourne criminal barrister with more than five decades at the bar. Dunn was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1995 and has appeared in some of the country’s highest-profile murder, conspiracy, fraud and drug trials.

It creates a pretty compelling pairing. One spent decades investigating, documenting and telling these stories to the public. The other spent decades inside the courtroom, defending the people at the centre of them.

And the setting is distinctly Melbourne.

Rather than a theatre or conference room, the conversation is happening among the barrels and bottles of Jamsheed Urban Winery in Preston. Founded by winemaker Gary Mills in 2003, Jamsheed built its reputation around Victorian single-vineyard Syrah and aromatic whites before Mills and partner Elika Rowell opened the Preston winery and cellar door in 2019.

“One of the best parts about running our own venue is that we get to hold whatever we want here,” Rowell says. “We’re absolutely thrilled to be able to host Adam and Philip, to hear the incredible untold stories beyond what we have seen and heard on the news.”

For a winery already known for doing things its own way, an afternoon combining minimal-intervention Victorian wine with stories from Melbourne’s criminal history feels strangely appropriate.

Wine & Crime with Adam Shand and Philip Dunn KC
Saturday 29 August 2026
4pm–6pm, with guests encouraged to arrive by 3:45pm
Jamsheed Urban Winery, Preston
Tickets are $65 per person and include a drink on arrival.