Twelve months ago Professor Brian Schmidt was living a routine life, working Monday to Friday in Canberra and trying his hand at winemaking after hours.
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Since the 44-year-old was named as a winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize for Physics, things have changed.
''There's not a lot of free time, that's for sure,'' Professor Schmidt said by phone from Stockholm where the Australian National University astronomer will collect his Nobel Prize during a ceremony early Sunday morning Canberra time.
''It looks pretty formal, I have to be in a tux and a white shirt and get to meet the king [of Sweden]. It's not really my thing.''
Typically in early December Professor Schmidt spends his spare time in shorts and a T-shirt at his 35-hectare farm just outside Canberra, where he runs a vineyard and winery.
''I make the wine. I try to do the whole thing myself but I've had to have a bit of help this year because I've been otherwise engaged,''the father-of-two who was named as a prize recipient in early October, said. ''[Winemaking] is one of the things I love to do. It's a therapy of sorts, an escape from my day-to-day job.''
Professor Schmidt's work has included ''the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe through observations of distant supernovae'', for which he has been cited by Nobel Prize organisers.
Of the similarities between science and winemaking, Professor Schmidt said, ''They both have their challenges.
''I think it is impossible to make the perfect pinot noir, whereas I try to make things pretty much perfect on the astronomy front. There's an exactness to astronomy that I haven't yet replicated as a winemaker.''
Yesterday, Professor Schmidt and his team of about 20 researchers met for lunch in Stockholm and charged their glasses to the prize. ''This is a team effort. I'm just symbolically receiving this on behalf of a lot of people,'' Professor Schmidt said.
''And in that regard [the lunch] is more important than the big award ceremony on Saturday. These are the people who shared in all the hard work.''
US-born Professor Schmidt, who has lived in Australia for about 17 years and calls himself Australian, was named as a joint winner of the physics prize along with US physicist Saul Perlmutter and the US's Professor Adam Riess.
For Professor Schmidt, the response to his prize - the first Nobel physics laureate awarded to an Australian in 96 years - has been overwhelming.
''I've had a couple of opportunities to meet with the Prime Minister and the members of the Government have been really supportive,'' Professor Schmidt said.
Since leaving Australia at the end of November, Professor Schmidt and his family have been to the US where he met President Barack Obama.
In Stockholm he has made presentations as part of the Nobel Lectures series.
Due home for Christmas, Professor Schmidt is looking forward to being back at the farm and continuing his scientific work. ''I'm still a scientist. I'm 44 [years old], I've many decades of hard work in front of me yet.''