The Australian Financial Review has appointed respected wine and drinks columnist Max Allen as its new drinks writer.

Allen will pen a weekly column on drinks for the Financial Review’s Life & Leisure section (published this Friday), together with a monthly column for the award-winning The Australian Financial Review Magazine.

With a brief to cover everything from wine and beer to spirits and other beverages, from both a consumer and business perspective, Allen will also write occasional features across the paper and magazines, and will work closely with the newspaper’s food writer Jill Dupleix on events including the Financial Review’s Australia’s Top Restaurants Awards, to be held this year in June.

“The appointment of Max Allen as drinks writer across the masthead highlights our strong commitment to the food and wine sector,” editor-in-chief of The Australian Financial Review, Michael Stutchbury, said.

“Our readers are keen to enjoy the best of what life has to offer. We take seriously our job of informing them about new drinks, restaurants and trends, with the mixture of style and substance for which we are renowned.”

Editor of The Australian Financial Review Magazine, Katrina Strickland, said: “Max has always been ahead of his time as a drinks communicator. He has a fresh and fearless take on the scene that I think our readers will love.”

Allen has been writing about wine and other drinks for 25 years. He is a columnist for Australian Gourmet Traveller and Gourmet Traveller WINE, and is the Australian correspondent for jancisrobinson.com. Until recently he was a columnist for The Australian.

His award-winning books include Red and White: Wine Made Simple (1997); The Future Makers; Australian Wines for the 21st Century (2011); The History of Australian Wine 1900-2000 (2012); and Wine Know How (2013).

Allen is working on a cultural history of drink and drinking in Australia, to be published by Melbourne University Press in 2018.

In London in 1999, Red and White: Wine Made Simple won the Andre Simon Memorial Award, one of the world’s most prestigious gongs for wine writing. It was the first time an Australian had received the award.