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Brief bio of jancis
One of a handful of wine communicators with an international reputation, Jancis Robinson writes daily for www.jancisrobinson.com, weekly for The Financial Times, and bi-monthly for a column that is syndicated in every continent. She is also editor of The Oxford Companion to Wine and co-author with Hugh Johnson of The World Atlas of Wine, each of these books recognized as a standard reference worldwide.
An award-winning tv presenter, she is invited all over the world to tutor wine tastings and act as a wine judge. In 1984 she was the first person outside the wine trade to pass the rigorous Master of Wine exams and in 2003 she was awarded an OBE by Her Majesty the Queen, on whose cellar she now advises.
See where to find me for details of current events, publications and broadcasts. See site history for details of the evolution of jancisrobinson.com The rest of the team
 Julia Harding MW is Jancis's fulltime assistant and invaluable to the functioning of this site. See here for full details of her glorious career. As a relatively recent top pass in the punishing Master of Wine exams, she is particularly up to speed on oenological and viticultural matters.
 Linda Murphy, until recently wine editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, is our West Coast correspondent, signed to beef up our coverage for our American visitors. See here for more about Linda's undoubted qualities and some of the reaction to news of her appointment. She is currently carving out a highly successful career as a freelance wine writer, lecturer and wine judge.Rachel Shaughnessy, a Sussex-based chartered accountant, is our subscriptions supremo and is your point of contact for all queries concerning membership of purple pages. She can be reached at subscriptions@jancisrobinson.com  Not forgetting Nick Lander, he who must be obeyed, Mr Jancis Robinson and Financial Times restaurant critic, super-chef and food service consultant to all manner of arts organisations such as the Royal Opera House, British Museum and the South Bank Centre who so kindly supplies nick's food news. See more at www.nicklander.comJancis writes...
My wine writing career began on 1 Dec 1975, virtually pre-history as far as modern wine is concerned, when I started as assistant editor of the British wine trade magazine Wine & Spirit. Since then I've been lucky enough to travel all over the world of wine (which nowadays includes Asia - a continent I never thought back in the 1970s that wine would help me explore) learning that our expanding wine world is inhabited by some of the most colourful and interesting characters that ever walked the earth. ... swot
1968-71 - Maths and Philosophy at St Anne's College, Oxford. I was one of the first three undergraduates ever to tackle this strange new arts-science hybrid. 1976-78 - did all of the wine trade exams organised by the Wine & Spirit Education Trust. This outfit is based in London but is now the world’s dominant wine educator. I joked at the time there'd probably be a question in the Certificate exam: 'Valpolicella is a) red, b) white or c) rosé' and there was in fact one that went 'Valpolicella is a) French, b) Spanish or c) Italian'. The WSET seems to be in a state of constant change but it does cover the ground in a very professional way, and there is always tasting as well as more arid instruction.
1984 - took and, more amazingly, passed the Master of Wine exams, becoming the first non wine trade person to earn the letters MW after their name. There are now well over 200 MWs worldwide and exams are held each year in London, the US and Australia. This fiendishly difficult qualification involves almost a week of exams, both theoretical and 'practical' (ie blind tasting). One day I'll explain why on earth I subjected myself to this ordeal - though I think being pregnant helped rather than hindered, as witness my doing especially well in the tasting papers. For more information on the Institute of Masters of Wine (IMW) see www.masters-of-wine.org.
1988 onwards - hooked in to the Oxford University Press book factory to edit the first (second and third) Oxford Companion to Wine: an honour for me and for wine, I felt, to follow in the distinguished path pioneered by the late Sir Paul Harvey and the first ever Oxford Companion, The Oxford Companion to English Literature published in 1932
1997 - Honorary Doctorate of The Open University, a great British institution founded by the Labour government in 1971 whereby people of all ages and conditions can study for a university degree. At the ceremony at which I was awarded the honour of being able to call myself Dr Robinson, there were scores of graduates with serious disabilities and one who was collecting his degree on his 80th birthday.
...prolific author
How to Taste aka 2002 Simon & Schuster (US)
Jancis Robinson's Wine Tasting Workbook 2002 Conran Octopus (UK)
Jancis Robinson's Wine
Course (2nd edn) 2003 BBC Books Oxford Companion 2006 Third edition
to Wine 2007 Published in German (Hallwag)
Dutch (Het Spectrum)
Danish (Gads)
Japanese (Hara Shobo)
…the groaning mantelpiece
MAJOR PRE 1995 AWARDS TO JANCIS ROBINSON 1978 Rouyet Guillet Cup for top marks in Wine & Spirit Education Trust Diploma 1983 Glenfiddich Drink Book of the Year 1984 Glenfiddich Radio/Television Programme of the Year 1984 Glenfiddich Trophy 1984 Master of Wine 1985 Marques de Cáceres Award 1986 Glenfiddich Drink Writer and Food Writer of the Year (a unique double) 1986 Wine Guild of the United Kingdom Premier Award 1987 André Simon Memorial Award Clicquot Book of the Year (US) 1992 Glenfiddich Television Programme of the Year 1995 AWARDS TO THE OXFORD COMPANION TO WINE André Simon Memorial Award (UK) Clicquot Book of the Year (US) Julia Child / International Association of Culinary Professionals (US) Glenfiddich Award (UK) James Beard Award (US) Premio Langhe Ceretto (Italy) Wine Guild of United Kingdom, Exceptional Certificate (UK) Redwood Books Award, Book Design and Production Awards (UK) Gold Medal, Academy of Gastronomy (Germany) 1995 AWARDS TO JANCIS ROBINSON Eighth annual Wine Literary Award, from the Wine Appreciation Guild, San Francisco, US for 'an exceptional contribution to the literature of wine in the English language' (US) Tenth Ruth Ellen Church Award, from the Midwest International Wine Exposition, Chicago, US 'created to recognize outstanding contributions to wine and food journalism' (US) Catalan Agriculture Medal (Spain) 1996 AWARDS Winner of the 1996 Glenfiddich Drinks Writer of the Year Award Winner of the overall 1996 Glenfiddich Trophy for food and drink communicators (Britain's top award) Voted second Woman of the Year for 'Celebrating Wine in American Life' Week by Women for Winesense (US) Jancis Robinson's Wine Course voted Wine Book of the Year and Television Programme of the Year by the Wine Guild of the United Kingdom. Jancis Robinson also won the Wine Guild's overall Premier Award (UK) Voted first Communicator of the Year by International Wine and Spirit Competition/Vinitaly (Italy/UK). Runners-up were Marvin Shanken, Wine Spectator and Decanter magazines. 1997 AWARD Honorary Doctorate, The Open University (UK) James Beards for Best Televison Food Journalism
1998 AWARD Silver Medal, Academy of Gastronomes (Germany) 1999 AWARDS Decanter magazine (Wo)Man of the Year (UK) Women for WineSense Inspirational Award, LA Chapter's first Hall of Fame (US) Glenfiddich Award for Best TV Programme (Vintners' Tales) First ever Glenfiddich Award for TV Personality of the Year Tasting Pleasure: Confessions of a Wine Lover wins Wine Writing Literary Award at Versailles World Cookbook Fair 'Vintners' Tales' wins Gold Award for wine TV programmes at the World Food Media Awards, Tasting Australia 2001 AWARDS Florida Winefest Andre Simon Wine Writer's Award (2nd ever winner, after Robert Parker) Oxford Companion to the Wines of North America shortlisted for a James Beard Award (US), Andre Simon Book Award (UK) and Lanson Award (UK)
2003 AWARDS Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) Winner of the first-ever Pro Bono Vinum award from Wine International magazine The Golden Vine Award (Tasting Australia) Winner with Hugh Johnson of the Schweizer Goldlorbeeren for best wine book (World Atlas of Wine) of 2003 Winner with Hugh Johnson of the German Gastronomic Academy's Silbermedaille, also for the Atlas shortlisted for Glenfiddich Wine Writer of the Year 2004 AWARDS
Wine International's Pro Bonum Vinum Wine Personality Favorita Award for a notable woman (tenth, and first non-Italian, recipient) Premio Internazionale 'Casato Prime Donne' The German Gastronomic Academy's top award, the Golden Feather, not given every year but given to the 2nd edn of Das Oxford Companion Weinlexikon (Hallwag) awarded at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2007 AWARDS Harpers Most Inspiring Wine Critic and Most Influential Wine Writer, eventually voted Most Inspiring Person in Drinks Voted second Most Influential Person in the World of Wine by visitors to decanter.com (after Robert Parker)
With Nick, one of London's 1000 Most Influential People according to the Evening Standard Premio EVA for women of achievement frim the government of Navarra
Inducted to the Wine Media Guild of NY's Wine Writers' Hall of Fame The Oxford Companion to Wine chosen as the only drinks book among the James Beard Books Committee's '20 Essential Books to Build Your Culinary Library' chosen for the 20th anniversary of the James Beard Foundation 2008 AWARDS Shortlisted for Lifetime Achievement Award (won by Tim and Nina Zagat) in the first International Restaurant and Hotel Awards to be held June 2008 in Beverly Hills Inducted into Wine Media Guild Hall of Fame, US World Atlas of Wine given Special Hall of Fame Award for being the Best Book on Wine at Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2008 …non bimbo broadcaster
I started out as rent-a-presenter, writing and presenting 'The Wine Programme' which I believe was the world's first TV series on wine and have yet to be corrected. plus numerous one-off narrations and appearances.
well rounded person.…
Other stuff that I do includes eating, drinking, talking and occasionally listening. The closest I get to any commercial involvement is my tastings as the wine consultant for British Airways and, since early 2005 I have been a member of the Royal Household Wine Committee, choosing wines for the Queen to serve her guests - also on the basis of blind tastings. Every few weeks I trek to the edge of Heathrow airport and taste up to 100 wines blind to choose the best quality examples that have come in as a result of a tender. We never look at the labels until the very, very end, but it's amazing how often the same producers, necessarily limited to those who can supply the vast quantities needed by such a big airline, do well. Nick and I are also closely involved with an annual international travel bursary for someone in food and/or drink (see more details at www.geoffreyrobertsaward.com) and in raising money for Comic Relief through wine-related activities. Look out for exciting news about what will happen re Wine Relief in the run-up to the next Red Nose Day on Friday March 16, 2007. I'm a Cumbrian, married to a saintly Mancunian (a United fanatic since birth), Nick Lander, who writes about food and restaurants for the Financial Times and is food service consultant to arts organisations such as the Royal Opera House, the British Museum, the South Bank Centre and Somerset House. He used to have a restaurant, L'Escargot, in Soho in the 1980s. See nick's food news. We have three exceptional children (of course) vintage-dated 1982, 1984 and 1991 and live most of the year in London. …with an unusual name
I was given the unusual name Jancis because my mother and her sister had read the novel Precious Bane by Mary Webb in their teens and liked the name of the heroine Jancis Beguildy so much (despite the fact that she drowned herself and her illegitimate son) that they decided the first one to have a daughter would call her Jancis. Mary Webb was very popular in the 20s and 30s and wrote rural melodramas of the sort that Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm parodies. (Our prime minister of the time, Stanley Baldwin, even wrote a preface to Precious Bane, a book in which the male characters tend to be called Seth and Gideon.) It may be a significant fact that most of Mary Webb's work was set in and around Shropshire. Until Jan 2007 neither I nor my mother knew whether Jancis is an old Shropshire name or whether Mary Webb made it up but purple pager Bob Ross of Franklin Lakes, NJ managed to find 'Shropshire Folklore, ed by C S Burne, from the collections of G G[F? JR] Jackson, by Georgina Frederica Jackson, 1886, page 575, has a series of primitive acrostics on the word Finis, including this one:
F for Francis, I for Jancis, N for Nicklis, I for Jicklis, S for Sammy Salt-Box.' Very interesting (to me!) and much appreciated.
Incidentally, my birth certificate actually says Jancice because it was only when I was eight that my mother re-read the book and realised she'd got the spelling wrong.
I have never actually met another Jancis but I have dedicated a book to one in the Bristol area, who must be in her early 20s; I've had a letter from one who must be in her 40s or 50s living in Milan; and I'm told there was once a dress shop in the town of Reigate in Surrey just south of London called Jancis. In Brazil in nov 03 I was contacted by a lady of Polish extraction whose parents had emigrated to Brazil with the family name Jancis, which I had never come across before. In dec 05 I heard from another Jancis born in 1950 living in an English village whose parish newsletter is called - purple pages.
My wine writing career began on Dec 1, 1975, when I started as assistant editor of the British wine trade magazine Wine & Spirit. Since then I've been lucky enough to travel all over the world of wine (which nowadays includes Asia - a continent I never thought back in the 1970s that wine would help me explore) learning that is inhabited by some of the most colourful and interesting characters that ever walked the earth. Perhaps more important is the fact that what they produce, which was always pretty romantic and wonderful and heartwarmingly earthy, is nowadays far more reliably delicious than it ever was. When I started out, it was remarkable if a wine smelt clean and not of sulphur or dirty filterpads. Today, hardly any wines are technically faulty (even though an awful lot of them are dull). There's a lot to be said about price and value as they relate to wine and I will say it, but this is probably not the place. Should you want to know in detail about how I got from being someone who couldn't type but somehow wangled their way on to a wine trade magazine to being rung up by a wine lover in Jakarta in the middle of the night, you could plough your way through my autobiographical memoir known as Tasting Pleasure in the US and Confessions of a Wine Lover everywhere else. For a longer version of my bio, choose one of the following options below: swot, prolific author, the groaning mantelpiece, non-bimbo broadcaster, well-rounded person… with an unusual name. |