“It has been over thirty years now since I started writing about wine. I was living in Paris and doing research on the history of the Bordeaux wine trade, and it seemed a natural thing to do. I was passionate about food as well, and it was not long before I added that to my repertoire: Paris had a lot to offer in that line, and it still does. When I returned to live in England in 1985 and began writing for the nationals, I added travel too, as that provided me with another canvas for describing food, wine, and of course history.
Things have changed a lot out there, however, and the chances of making regular contributions to our knowledge of wine, food and travel have become few and far between. Newspaper wine writing has degenerated into short strings of tasting notes mostly concentrating on the sort of wines that hardly deserve comment, let alone praise. Such specialised magazines as there are publish the views of their own ‘specialists’. The ‘generalist’ has become an endangered species.Beyond the headland of the press, lies a great, stormy sea of blogs – so many “vociferous tub-thumpers” bending the ears of anyone who will listen and hoping that they too will become authorities once the waters finally calm.
