Brief bio of Jancis

One of a handful of wine communicators with an international reputation, Jancis Robinson writes daily for JancisRobinson.com (voted first-ever Wine Website of the Year in the Louis Roederer International Wine Writers Awards 2010), weekly for The Financial Times, and bi-monthly for a column that is syndicated around the world. She is also editor of The Oxford Companion to Wine, co-author with Hugh Johnson of The World Atlas of Wine, co-author of Wine Grapes - A complete guide to 1,368 vine varieties, including their origins and flavours, each of these books recognised as a standard reference worldwide.

An award-winning TV presenter, she is invited all over the world to conduct wine events 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. 

She loves and lives for wine in all its glorious diversity, generally favouring balance and subtlety over sheer mass.

See Jancis Robinson - the long version for more detail.

See Where to find us 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 full-time assistant and crucial to maintaining the high editorial standards 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 took them in 2003 and passed first time with flying colours), she is particularly up to speed on oenological and viticultural matters and is also prepared to tackle the complexities of wine legislation head on. She is currently engaged, with José Vouillamoz and Jancis, in compiling what will be the most comprehensive consumer guide to grape varieties ever.

Richard Hemming is a frequent contributor to the site, inbetween working extremely hard for this Master of Wine exams. You can read about his travails here and in the instalments leading up to it. In a past life he worked for Majestic Wine and is a runner up in the Young Wine Writers Awards. He has been appointed wine writer for Sainsbury's Magazine and is a frequent lecturer on wine. 

Tamlyn Currin we could not do without. She is the Queen of the tasting notes database and works tirelessly to keep it shipshape and up to date. She shone in the WSET Diploma exams and is a keen taster. Like Julia, she is a particular stickler for detail and consistency. One of her many special interests is the Languedoc.

Linda Murphy, until 2006 wine editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, is our West Coast correspondent, signed to beef up our coverage for our many American visitors. See here for more about Linda's undoubted qualities and some of the reaction to news of her appointment. Although based in Sonoma, California, she is rapidly becoming an expert on the many and varied wines of the entire United States of America.  She is also West Coast correspondent for Decanter magazine. 

 

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, the Ashmolean in Oxford and the South Bank Centre, who so kindly supplies Nick on restaurants. See more at www.nicklander.com.

Our German specialist is Michael Schmidt (far left), who commutes between southern England, where he is an experienced wine judge and educator, and the Ahr Valley in Germany.  Our Italian specialist is Walter Speller (left), about whom you can read here, while Ferran Centelles (right) is our Spanish specialist, as described here. We are very proud to be able to share such a body of expertise with you.



Alder Yarrow joined the team in October 2011 to provide a regular column on what is currently preoccupying wine-loving Americans. By day he runs a design and strategy consulting firm while by night he is responsible for Vinography.com, the most awarded wine blog anywhere since its inception in 2004. Alder was educated at Stanford and Oxford and lives in San Francisco with his wife and young daughter.



In February 2012 we added another monthly columnist, Alex Hunt MW, renowned for his tasting skills and the principal wine buyer for Berkmann Wine Cellars in London. He contributes a column with a philosophical bent under the title Alex on taste.You can read more about him in Introducing Alex. By coincidence, he is Richard Hemming's mentor as he retakes the practical half of the Master of Wine exam, Julia having been his first mentor. 

Other contributors have included Melanie Jones MW of quaffersoffers.co.uk and, in 2008, Victoria Daskal, who reported from around the world while completing her Master's degree under the auspices of  the OIV the International Organisation of Vine and Wine.