Wine writing

“Life is what happens to us, when we are making other plans”

How did I enter the wine trade is a relatively simple question to answer – I inadvertently reversed into it whilst looking the other way.

Why I chose to continue, needs more rigorous address.

That dubious British establishment, once known as the landed gentry, laudably gave up its sons to run the country, and by default maintain an empire. The first would be sent into politics, the second to the armed forces, the third into law and with the main buttresses in place, the fourth would be consigned to the church. Were there to be a fifth son, this apparently decreasing professional lineage would have doubtless provided a safe haven – that of the wine trade. The term trade being thought too vulgar perhaps, the term profession too arrogant, the wine trade has more recently chosen to define its uncertain activities as an occupation – and indeed, many souls does it occupy. Like watching the endless credit list scroll down at the end of the Harry Potter films, one has but to visit any one of the numerous global wine fairs to see just how many people are bound into its embrace.

What makes up this caucus is an indiscriminate group dedicated to amusement, diversion and congeniality. Entering such a profession makes little sense to those who require either commercial security or financial gain. It is frowned upon by bankers, accountants and clerics and spurned by global investors. Wine is principally spared the vicissitudes experienced by the constant desire for profit. The oft-quoted maxim that ‘in order to make a small fortune in the wine game, you have to start with a large one’ rings out clearer than a country church bell across a hazy meadow.

The cast of thousands that contribute to this perambulating circus are neither strangers to false modesty nor blessed with altruism. They are in the main a motley crew of rapscallions, chancers, new-age philosophers, delusional imbibers, promiscuous sommeliers and amiable misfits. Some purport to old-school protocol others to bohemian ostentation, but above all they exhibit the desire for hospitality, camaraderie and a need to share and dispense what they fervently believe to be that bewitching nectar of the Gods – wine.

Their limited aspirations may well be shared with another more noble occupation. When Picasso was informed, by a young visitor to his studio “…that when I grow up I want to be an artist”, he replied, “You can’t do both”.

 What has been of unexpected entitlement, has been the task of visiting wine-growing regions across the globe, and wine growing regions by definition encompass some of the most staggeringly beautiful scenery any country has on offer. Coupled with a willing immersion in aspects of local geography, culture, history, sociology, biology, gastronomy and chemistry – there have been, and continue to be, a host of shared tributes along the path from vine to glass.

As a wine merchant, restaurateur and writer, I am pleased to have been part of their ranks and contributed to some of their diversions over the last twenty years.

I have been drinking wine (in preference to any other alcoholic beverage) for nearly forty years, I have been selling wine for nearly twenty years, but I have been writing about it for only ten – clearly there appears to be a lot of catching up to do. However, even if such a concept were possible, wine will inevitably outrun me, or you for that matter, as it transforms and renews itself every season, every harvest and almost every bottle. Every time you think you have nailed a preference for a specific country or a region, a grape variety or style, wine will shape-shift in front of your very eyes to adopt a new and sometimes disarming persona. As wine is never static, its commentators must therefore embrace the same outlook. A new bottle is not an immutable product it is a living adventure, an expedition full of twists and turns and the only offer I can make here is to ask that you join me on the exciting journey I know it to be.

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