Le Tasting Room

My career in wine started shortly after I left school and joined Seagram UK (at that time part of the largest wine and spirits company in the world).  While there, I studied with the Wine & Spirit Education Trust, gaining my Diploma (the highest qualification) in 1986.  Subsequent jobs involved running the sales office operations of two London wholesalers, selling wine to on-trade customers (hotels and restaurants) for Grants of St James’s and ultimately setting up my own wine education company called Vintastic in the South of England.

While working for myself, I represented an Australian winemaker based in the South of France, worked with an inspirational winemaker in Israel, ran wine courses for adults and sold wine on behalf of the General Wine Company in Liphook.  I also lectured at wine societies and clubs across the South of England.

In 2003 I decided to further my own wine education and returned to study at Plumpton College (part of Brighton University) for a further 2 years.  This HND course offered by the only winemaking college in the UK gave me the opportunity to put my academic knowledge in to practice, while learning skills such as pruning, planting and harvesting vines, as well as analysing, making and bottling wine with the odd bit of tractor driving for good measure.