The English Wine Diaries

Send us Fan Mail Joining me on today’s episode of The English Wine Diaries is Dan Farrell-Wright from online wine merchant Wickhams, The Great British Wine Merchant and our sponsor for this series of the podcast.  Dan started Wickham’s in November 2020, at the height of the pandemic and quickly caught the attention of the wine industry. Within a year, the Newton Abbot-based company had been shortl...

Send us Fan Mail My guest today on The English Wine Diaries is Alex Preston, head sommelier at Isaac At in Brighton – the first restaurant in the UK to have an exclusively English wine list.  Alex caught the wine bug early at vocational college and, after joining the Isaac At team in the summer of 2016, he rebuilt the then limited English-only wine list into a library of unconventional pairings th...

Send us Fan Mail Joining me on today's episode of The English Wine Diaries is Charlie Stein, the youngest of celebrity chef Rick Stein’s three sons and director at the family’s restaurant brand, where his passion lies in creating extraordinary dining experiences with excellent wine. Born in Padstow, where his mother and father opened their first restaurant in the early seventies, Charlie was...

Send us Fan Mail Joining me on today’s show is Phil Norman, who is head of production at The Uncommon, the UK’s number one producer of English wine in a can.  With a French mother and family ties in Burgundy, Phil has never been far away from fine food and wine. He studied viticulture and enology in the mid noughties whilst completing an apprenticeship alongside Denis Bachelet in Gevrey Chambertin...

Send us Fan Mail On this week's episode of The English Wine Diaries is award-winning wine writer Susy Atkins. Susy began her career in the early nineties at WINE magazine before heading to Australia to get her hands dirty working as a cellar hand at wineries in the Barossa Valley. When she returned the UK, she began to edit Which? Wine Monthly, eventually becoming the co-editor of the Which?...

Send us Fan Mail On this week's episode of The English Wine Diaries, I am joined by Sam Linter, managing director and head winemaker at Bolney Wine Estate in Sussex. Sam’s parents, Janet and Rodney Pratt, founded the vineyard in 1972, at which time Bolney Wine Estate was one of the first commercial vineyards in England and Sam spent her childhood living on the vineyard, joining the family bus...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to series 5 of The English Wine Diaries! Joining me on this week's episode of the show is one of Britain’s most acclaimed chefs, Michael Caines MBE. Michael held two Michelin stars for 18 consecutive years before he took the leap of faith to open his own country house hotel at Lympstone Manor in Exmouth in 2017. His restaurant there was awarded a Michelin star wi...

Send us Fan Mail Today my guest on The English Wine Diaries is Zam Baring, who joins me from The Grange in Hampshire – home to the famous Grange Opera Festival.  Just over a decade ago Zam and his siblings Mark, Rose and Lucy, who are custodians of The Grange estate, decided to embark on a project to “make something great, together” and, noting their land was perfect for the cultivation of grapes...

Send us Fan Mail This week on The English Wine Diaries, my guest is Finn Dunlop, who is the senior purchasing manager for Macknade – a Kent based company that creates spaces and experiences to bring communities together around a shared love of food & drink. Having started his career at The Savoy Group of Hotels in London, Finn has always had a strong interest, knowledge and love of Food and Wi...

Send us Fan Mail This week on The English Wine Diaries, I am joined by one of the most enthusiastic couples I have ever met when it comes to English Wine. America and Nick Brewer bought Oastbrook, their picturesque vineyard near Robertsbridge in East Sussex, in 2013. Formerly a Guinness hop farm, the estate has now been transformed by the pair into a stunning venue, not only to visit but also to s...

Send us Fan Mail Today on The English Wine Diaries, my guest is award-winning filmmaker and founder of Nania’s Vineyard, James Bayliss-Smith.  James’ work as a filmmaker has taken him across the globe, making character-driven and presenter-led documentaries and current affairs programmes.  However, it was back here in the UK, in an allotment in Bristol, that his adventurous English wine journey be...

Send us Fan Mail Today my guest is Duncan Schwab, CEO and head-winemaker at Sandridge Barton in Devon.  Duncan’s passion for growing grapes and making wine was first ignited when he helped plant his parent’s vineyard in Cornwall, in the early 1980s.   He joined Devon’s Sharpham Vineyard, which is also famed for its cheese, a decade later and has been involved with the award-winning estate for near...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to the fourth series of The English Wine Diaries! My guest today is Alistair Morrell, who is the co-founder of Cider is Wine, the quality mark for ciders, perries and fruit wines fermented exclusively from the fruit and not from concentrate.  Using their extensive experience in the wine industry, Alistair and his business partner, Roddy Kane, have defined a new sector...

Send us Fan Mail We're back for a special bonus episode before the year is out with the legend that is Oz Clarke. Here in the UK there aren’t many names more synonymous with wine than Oz Clarke. He started his wine career some 40 years ago, back when only a small percentage of the UK population were drinking wine.  Whilst he was at university, he started competing in wine tasting competitions...

Send us Fan Mail Today on The English Wine Diaries, my guest is Elisha Rai, one half of the couple who founded FOLC, a high quality English rosé wine brand with a modern mindset.  Recognising the demand in the UK for an English version of the popular Provence-style rosés made in the south of France, Elisha and her finance, Tom Cannon launched their 2019 vintage of FOLC just as the world descended...

Send us Fan Mail Today my guests on The English Wine Diaries podcast are father and son Julian and Tom Barnes from Biddenden Vineyard in Kent. Originally an apple orchard, Biddenden has been owned and run by the Barnes family since 1969. Today it remains very much a family affair with Tom and his brothers, Will and Sam dealing with the day to day management of the vineyard and winemaking process u...

Send us Fan Mail Today on The English Wine Diaries, my guest is Nick Wenman, from Albury Vineyard in Surrey. Running a vineyard was a very early dream from Nick. When he  was 17, he won the school economics prize, he chose the World Atlas of Wines and Spirits for the headmaster to present to him as a prize on speech day . It wasn't until some time later, following a career in the IT industry,...

Send us Fan Mail Today on The English Wine Diaries podcast, my guest is the multi-award-winning wine expert and broadcaster, Olly Smith. Olly is the wine columnist for The Mail on Sunday ’s You magazine, appears regularly on BBC1’s Saturday Kitchen and he also hosts his own drinks podcast 'A Glass With… ’ where he speaks to celebrities and more about their favourite tipples. He has been named...

Send us Fan Mail My guest today is cricketing legend, sports pundit and former King of the Jungle, Phil Tufnell . Now, you may well be thinking, 'what the hell is an ex-England cricketer and TV personality such as Phil doing on a wine podcast?'  But there is very good reason. Phil has recently launched his own collection of wines – aptly named Tuffers' Tipple, which are  available t...

Send us Fan Mail "Of the 80,000 men and women in prison, 47% of those released each year go back to re-offending, mainly because they haven't got a bed, they haven't got a job nor support, so The Clink was set up to break that cycle of crime."   My guest today is Christopher Moore , the chief executive of The Clink Charity, which trains prisoners to gain City and Guilds qualifi...

Send us Fan Mail Today my guest is Susannah Ricci, who has transformed Yotes Court, near Mereworth in Kent, from a tired house with an overgrown garden and fruit farm into a magnificent Manor House, vineyard and Cellar Door. Susannah released her debut wines this year and they have already won a whole host of awards but you may recognise the name Ricci for other reasons as Susannah and her husband...

Send us Fan Mail Today we will be talking wine and wellness with Jackie Wilks from Terlingham Vineyard in Kent. Jackie’s family originate from South Africa but came to the UK in 2007 and, a few years later, they stumbled upon Terlingham, a boutique vineyard in Folkestone that was up for sale. They decided to take the plunge and have since grown the vineyard into a beautiful retreat where the focus...

Send us Fan Mail This week, on the last episode of series two of The English Wine Diaries, I am joined by William Lowe, founder of the world's most innovative distillery – the Cambridge Distillery.  William has worked within the drinks industry for 23 years and has taught over 10,000 individuals through the Wine & Spirit Education Trust, which has led him to be awarded WSET Educator of th...

Send us Fan Mail This week my guest is Master Sommelier Laura Rhys. The early days of Laura’s wine career saw her working alongside some of the industry’s finest including World Sommelier Champion Gérard Basset, before she went to head up the wine team at Michelin-starred Chiswick restaurant La Trompette. In 2009 Laura won the UK Sommelier of the Year award and the following year, became a Master...

Send us Fan Mail For this week's episode of The English Wine Diaries,  I have not one but two guests joining me. Kit Ellen started his wine journey over 20 years ago when he joined the Majestic Wine graduate scheme, where he won the prestigious Gonzalez Be-ass Scholarship before moving to Free Run Wines, where he focussed on supplying grower Champagnes and sparkling wines to the UK market. It...