She says do not be impressed by the label on the bottle, simply enjoy the product and choose a wine that suits the occasion.

“If you are drinking with friends after work choose a wine to reflect that mood,” Ms Walker advised between judging white wine classes at this year’s Hunter Valley Wine Show. 

“It should never be about label snobbery, but rather the moment and where and who you are with.”

The event, held at the Singleton Army Base, is one of this country’s leading wine shows and dates back to 1848 when one of the first wine shows in Australia was held in the Hunter Valley. 

The “Hunter Valley Wine Show” has been held since 1974.

This year marks its 40th anniversary and it will be the last year for chief judge Jim Chatto and chief ­steward Earl Hulin. 

As usual the judging panel includes locals, nationals and an international judge, who this year is Ms Walker.

The gregarious Ms Walker is the co-founder and managing director of Dragon Phoenix Wine Consulting, based in Beijing, and is considered China’s most qualified wine educator.

Her recent appearances as an international judge include the Royal Melbourne Wine Show, the Wines of Chile Awards, the Hawke’s Bay Wine Awards, the Qantas Wine Show of Western Australia and the Limestone Coast Wine Show.

Speaking in her almost rounded English vowels this citizen of the world grew up living in Asia, Canada and England with her English father and Chinese mother, and developed a love of Chinese food and good wine.

“Given my heritage I was lucky enough to know how to enjoy wine with Chinese cuisine – my mother’s western food was atrocious,” she laughed.

“We were living in Canada when my family became aware of Australian wines after my mother bought a bottle of Yalumba and ­commented, ‘I didn’t know Australia produced wine.’”

But Ms Walker’s real interest in wine began while studying for her PhD in ancient Chinese literature at Cambridge University. 

It was there that Fongyee discovered she was good with wine.

“At Cambridge I joined the wine tasting team – it was a university competitive sport and eventually I became the captain of that team,” she said.

“Realising it was going to be pretty hard to make a decent living from ancient Chinese literature I decided to change career paths and join the wine industry.”

On her third visit to the Hunter Fongyee said: “Early on one of the great wines I tasted was a Hunter semillon, it was an amazing wine ­elegant but also powerful.

“In China people are very interested in wine but they are too worried about the labels, there is a snobbery which means they don’t enjoy the wine they simply buy on reputation.

“If we can get them to enjoy wine and forget about their snobbery that would be a good thing.

“Small steps, it’s very early days for wine appreciation in China. 

“We have to remember the first international supermarket only opened in 1997 so understanding wine is something quite new.”

This year the Hunter Valley show will see the introduction of two new awards; the Innovation Award and the Silver Bullet Award.

The show features wines from vignerons of the Hunter Valley vying for more than 25 trophies including the prestigious honours of the Petrie-Drinan Trophy for Best White Wine of the Show, Doug Seabrook Memorial Trophy for Best Red Wine of the Show, Ian Riggs Wine of Provenance and Les Evans Trophy for Best Named Vineyard Wine.

The Innovation award will be introduced this year and encourages the exploration and innovation of wines that push the boundaries of current wine making and viticulture techniques.