"My love-affair with wine started when I walked into the home of Michael Shuster, the renowned taster, teacher and author for a beginner’s wine course. It was pure luck that I had chosen Michael’s course (it was walking distance from my office in Islington) and what took me there was the fact that I had to order wine at business lunches in front of business clients, and thus felt the need to be a little bit more educated as far as wine was concerned. I was hooked, and I returned time and again, until I had my advanced wine exams and I finally felt ready to go out and experience the world of wine for myself. That was in 1984 and to this day I still find the same buzz of excitement when I taste a wine I haven’t tried before.
What Michael taught me is that wine is fun. It is actually meant to be enjoyed. It’s a serious business, that shouldn’t be taken too seriously. As Jancis Robinson says, 'wine is one of life’s perks, an indulgence, a mood-lifter, a social mixer'.
I am also a keen biker and over the years a succession of motorbikes, perhaps not really suited to off-roading, have ended up following some dirt track to vineyards in strangely remote parts of Europe. I seem to have learned to say “I am not a trespasser, I am a wino” in many languages and always end up making new friends. It is probably no great surprise to learn that my favourite wines come from regions that also have great scenic roads; the Rhone valley, the Loire, Alsace, the Rhinelands, Piedmont, Chianti, Rioja. These places feel like home to me. Oddly, I tend to think of New World wines as exotic, mysterious, and ever-so-slightly naughty. I wonder why?!"
