I have had a passion for wine since my French exchange days when I stayed with the Remy family (of Domaine Louis Remy in Morey St Denis).

In 1993 I spent a year in France as part of my French and Business degree, and worked with Domaine Jean Marc Brocard in Chablis. Being the English "stageaire" I was given all the choice jobs!

I was there for the preparation of the 1993 harvest, which involved bottling the 1992s and making the Chais ready for the new vintage. During harvest on the sunny days I was in the cellars and on the rainy days I was in the fields with the vendangeurs.

On graduating, along with a couple of friends we set up a private wine club called the SS Wine Society (named after Serena Sutcliffe who gave us the idea for the club at a preview tasting of the Andrew Lloyd Weber wine collection sale).

During the 8 years in which I worked in the City friends and colleagues heard about the SSWS and asked if they could join. Thus grape-juice was born in 2002.

In 2005, having married Nathalie and left the City to concentrate on wine, I met the Domaine Gayda guys (including Angela Richardson and Tim Ford) and we decided to establish a premium UK Agency wine company. In January 2006 New Generation Wines was born when Ben Llewelyn came on board.

In the meantime Paul Newman (Indi) and I had come up the the idea of online wine tastings and in September 2005 we broadcast our first live wine tasting, also with Ben on the panel. This was the start of what is now Tastoria.

So that is me, I am very lucky to have a great career in wine, working with some great people, and a wonderful family too!