Firm Friends
Briefs to bubbles: Natalie Hazel, Champagne Specialist
When Natalie was a boarder at Sydney’s Kincoppal-Rose Bay School, she knew she wanted a professional career. She had ruled out being a doctor because she couldn’t stand the sight of blood, but couldn’t decide whether she wanted to be a lawyer or an optometrist. "After my physics teacher, who was a bit uninspiring, told me optometry was all about physics, I crossed it off my application form and chose law," explained Natalie.
The one career she never imagined having, especially with teetotal parents, is the one she now has as a champagne specialist.
Following a traditional path
Natalie spent 24 years at Ashurst, Sydney. Two years into her law degree, she began working for Blake Dawson Waldron after a friend told her the firm was looking for paralegals to work on a large litigation case. (That firm later became Blake Dawson before merging with Ashurst.) "I didn’t realise then that this would be a life-changing moment for me: the place I would spend my entire legal career and meet my wonderful husband. I simply asked what they were paying and signed up because it was $6 an hour more than my retail job," said Natalie.
After completing degrees in business (majoring in management) and law, Natalie was offered a graduate position in the same team she'd been working in as a paralegal. Managing Partner Peter Johnstone then gave her the opportunity to join a new management consulting group established by Blake Dawson Waldron. After working in that area for a couple of years, she decided to move back into a purely legal team to hone her technical legal skills. A chance conversation in the tearoom led to her joining the firm’s Intellectual Property team.
Natalie went on to earn a Master of Laws degree in IP Law and worked in the IP team as a lawyer, senior associate and special counsel for more than a decade. During that time, Natalie and her husband Damian, also a lawyer, had their three children.
Like many other working parents, Natalie "struggled with the juggle" of being a senior professional and the mother of young children and often felt conflicted by the lack of time she had for both her children and her work. After voicing her concerns to the partner she was working with, Natalie was offered the opportunity to become the firm’s Deputy General Counsel in 2014.
Focusing on family and learning
In 2019, with her daughter about to start high school and with two young sons at two different schools, Natalie decided to take time off and spend more time with her young family.
At that time, Natalie was renovating the family home, with plans that included turning a basement room into a wine cellar. She didn’t know much about cellaring wine, so she enrolled at the Wine & Spirit Education Trust and completed her WSET2 and WSET3 qualifications during school hours. Natalie soon realised it was champagne that lit her fire within, just like intellectual property law had done many years earlier. She had planned to return to law, but decided against it and instead enrolled on every champagne course she could find!
She went on to enrol in the Champagne Masters Certification with the Wine Scholar Guild and took every opportunity to sharpen her practical skills through comparative tastings.
When Natalie had the opportunity in 2023 to attend a Wine Scholar Guild Intensive Course in Reims, the epicentre of Champagne, she jumped at the chance. "I’ve always loved the Champagne region, and we actually honeymooned there. To be able to study in both classrooms and vineyards with two of the world’s leading experts in champagne, Peter Liem and Essi Avellan MW, was game-changing for me," said Natalie. It was on that trip, while standing in the footsteps of Dom Pérignon in Hautvillers Abbey, that Natalie had an epiphany: her new career would be a celebration of Champagne, its people and their wine.
Forging a new path while celebrating the traditionnel
Australia has a champagne market worth more than A$261 million. But Natalie knew that though Chefs de Cave (the head winemakers of champagne houses) regularly toured Australia, they often didn't include Sydney events in their schedules as there was no champagne specialist based in the city.
In just two years, Natalie has filled the gap in the market. She has established herself as an independent champagne specialist, journalist, educator and presenter. She has also founded the Société de Champagne Sydney, "a social club for the appreciation and enjoyment of champagne". Natalie’s glamorous events sell out quickly and her tastings attract champagne house representatives and leading sommeliers. She also runs private corporate tastings and masterclasses and provides cellar curation advisory services.
Natalie’s independent champagne Instagram account, @champagneinstyle, has more than 20,000 followers. And, what's more, this year she was ranked 9th in the Top 25 Australian Wine Influencers and 12th in the Top 90 Champagne Influencers (worldwide) by FeedSpot.
Natalie loves writing about champagne and her work has been published in wine and lifestyle magazines in Australia. "I love every aspect of what I’m doing now, particularly writing about a wine and a region that I love." When asked what she hopes her legacy will be, she said, "I want people to appreciate that champagne is a serious wine that is not only an apéritif, but also pairs beautifully with food."
Natalie now travels to Champagne and other international destinations several times a year in pursuit of new knowledge and to strengthen her industry connections. She relishes all these experiences, which include tasting rare cuvées with the winemakers of Champagne. One of her favourite champagne moments has to be "tasting the rare Bollinger’s La Côte aux Enfants and Philipponnat’s Clos des Goisses while standing among the very vines from which they were produced".
Another of Natalie’s career highlights was being invited to a prominent Swedish champagne collector’s small gathering for a private tasting in 2024. However, as her daughter was in her final year of high school, Natalie declined. "It was a wonderful invitation, but I had to support my daughter (who's now in her first year studying law at Sydney University) at that critical time. However, I was honoured to receive an invitation to this year’s tasting," said Natalie. The 2025 tasting featured clos champagnes, which are iconic wines from single walled vineyards in Champagne. Grapes grown in these microclimates are used to produce the rarest, most sought-after champagnes in the world – some of which cost upwards of A$5,000 a bottle.
While Natalie dreams about one day buying a place in Champagne to escape the Australian winter, for now she’s grateful to have a holiday home on the New South Wales coast where her family enjoy precious time together as often as they can.
Connect with Natalie on LinkedIn
