How I got here 

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I did a 22-​year stint as wine critic of The Sun­day Times, picking up var­i­ous awards for mag­a­zine and newspaper articles as well as for my books, and for five of those years I was also one of The Sunday Times team of cook­ery writ­ers (see my recipes). I'm a co-​founder of The Wine Gang and was wine & food editor of House & Garden for six years. Commissioning great food writers and photographers was very stimulating, but in the end it didn't give me enough time for my own writing and travelling, so I handed back the reins.

 

I went on to be founding editor of Waitrose & Partners Drinks magazine, a sister magazine to Waitrose Food. After six rewarding years there, I felt it was time to move on and give myself more space again. Currently, I write regularly for the The World of Fine Wine, including a monthly series called At The Table, and from time to time Decanter, The Daily Mail and Club Oenologique. Recently, I contributed to The Epicurean's Atlas.

 

I have done a wide range of competition judging, including the Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA) International Wine Challenge, Pink Lady Food Pho­tog­ra­pher of the Year (as it happens, I’m the daugh­ter of a photographer and have become quite a keen snapper myself in recent years – see my Instagram); the Louis Roederer International Wine Writer Awards (which reminded me just how good some wine writers are); the Deutz Trophy at the Festival Culinaire Bernard Loiseau; and chocolate awards (Academy of Chocolate and global head judge of The Great British Savoury Chocolate Challenge).

 

Along the way, I pre­sented the BBC Radio 4 series The Bot­tle Uncorked and television appearances have included tast­ing and explain­ing first-​growth Bor­deaux from great vin­tages of the 20th cen­tury, demonstrat­ing how to open a bot­tle of Cham­pagne while sit­ting on an impos­si­bly low, squashy sofa, tast­ing masses of vod­kas (what­ever pos­sessed me?) and a few tamer stunts. Many moons ago I was edi­tor of Wine mag­a­zine and before that of Wine & Spirit (both now defunct – no reflec­tion on me, I hope). I host tast­ings, din­ners, mas­ter­classes, work­shops, one-​to-​ones, large cor­po­rate and small pri­vate events, and wine tours. You name it, really. And I have written some best selling books.

 

Some per­sonal stuff: I live in Kent, but escape to a trea­sured spot in remote, rural south­west France when­ever I can. I love Ital­ian cities out of sea­son. I find a new desert-​island wine at least once a month and can never bear to dis­card any. Mine will be a huge island.

 

Other cred­its

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Here’s a link to my page on my agent's website. A few things escape even her eagle eye. One is that I taste and write for The World of Fine Wine. I have also con­tributed to Jamie mag­a­zine and Conde Nast Trav­eller.