On Irouléguy mon amour
A word of warning: this is – mostly – about a novel written in French and thus may be irrelevant to some readers. If you speak or read French though, march on! Wine and fiction make for uneasy bedfellows. Despite the positive feedback I have received on my own novel, Tasting Notes, I am awareContinue reading “On Irouléguy mon amour”
On Reviews And Scores
In the last few days I was asked for my opinion on the walking shoes I had bought the week before, and on the book I’d just finished reading. Sainsbury’s wondered how they did when delivering my food shop and Virgin media was anxious to know how happy I was with their “self-help” service. LastContinue reading “On Reviews And Scores”
On Podcasts – Society and Culture and Stories 2/3
Continuing with Society and Culture, This American Life is almost invariably good. Each weekly episode focuses on one – often topical – theme, developed over several unrelated stories. This year so far, I have particularly enjoyed episode 729: Making the Cut which explains, among other things, how Covid has altered dating in NYC and madeContinue reading “On Podcasts – Society and Culture and Stories 2/3”
On Sharing Your Writing
‘What pages are the sex scenes on, so that I don’t waste any time?’ Oz Clarke asked me. I’d sent him my novel, Tasting Notes, and explained, in person first, and then in an email, how much it would mean to me if he read it. That answer would have upset me, coming from anybodyContinue reading “On Sharing Your Writing”
On Podcasts – Society and Culture 1/3
Yesterday I went on a walk with Ruby Wax and Louis Theroux. The day before that, I’d used my daily outing to try and understand the intricacies of an unsolved murder somewhere in America. And last week, a collection of world-famous winemakers accompanied me to Bushy Park and Richmond Bridge. I am neither delusional norContinue reading “On Podcasts – Society and Culture 1/3”
From PAYE to Freelance
Before Christmas I gave a remote talk about going from PAYE to freelance to fifty clients of an outplacement company. Considering the number of calls I’ve had in the last six months from friends in the wine business thinking about going freelance, or being forced to, it may be useful to share what I haveContinue reading “From PAYE to Freelance”
On Wine Bitch
A bunch of anonymous newsletters targeting the wine Twitter bubble started circulating anonymously during lockdown. The content was meant to be satirical. Some of it was amusing, some statements about the new wave of influencers – aspiring to the lifestyle [they] know [they] deserve – were true but most of it was like a carContinue reading “On Wine Bitch”
On Wine Influencers
In the beginning there was writing and television. Television was Oz Clarke and Jilly Goolden. Love it or hate it, and interestingly enough Jilly was the one who came up for most of the criticism of the imaginative language they used, this show did a hell of a lot to widen the appeal of wineContinue reading “On Wine Influencers”
On Wine Buyers
Serialising Tasting Notes, the novel I wrote twelve years ago, is bringing back memories of my years as a wine saleswoman and the many buyers I sold to. ‘Rachel sounds awful,’ my eldest daughter said yesterday. ‘Read on,’ I said. ‘She’s not.’ ‘Rachel’, Tasting Notes’ fictional supermarket wine buyer, is an amalgam of two buyersContinue reading “On Wine Buyers”
On Tasting Victory
What do you do when someone you respect but don’t know that well dies before his time? You buy their memoir. It is a small gesture but one that seems like the best way to pay homage to a life well lived. When Gérard Basset passed away, like thousands of others in the wine andContinue reading “On Tasting Victory”
On Selling Wine
In a recent Meininger Wine Business article, Robert Joseph asks, ‘What makes a good wine salesperson?’ I don’t know how good a salesperson I was but I stuck at it for 23 years, selling millions of bottles, which qualifies me to comment. Robert’s indisputable opener that ‘almost everything needs to be sold by someone’ remindsContinue reading “On Selling Wine”
On Women in Wine
In May last year, Christy Canterbury MW wrote an article on Tim Atkin MW’s blog entitled ‘Where next for women in wine?’ I loved its upbeat tone and optimism. In an era when some women seem more concerned with bashing men indiscriminately and stoking the fires of a sex war than being proactive in advancingContinue reading “On Women in Wine”
On Lying
Lying is, in its various shapes and forms, part and parcel of life and especially professional life, something I’ve always found difficult to cope with. It fascinates me though. I suppose that makes me a daughter of Eve, the first victim of deception in the history of mankind. One of my former bosses once exhortedContinue reading “On Lying”
On Travelling
The first chapter of Tasting Notes describes a sales trip to the South of France. Richard Siddle from The Buyer tells me he found it ‘even more poignant as none of us can travel and these are the memories we all have.’ Wine people are big travellers. Jamie Goode, the self-titled Wine Anorak, tells meContinue reading “On Travelling”
On Tasting Notes
Tasting Notes is a work of fiction, loosely based on my professional life. It is first and foremost meant to entertain. I have always wanted to write and to write a novel but I did not know what to write about. The idea of setting my story in the wine world came to me afterContinue reading “On Tasting Notes”
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