Francis was born in the UK in 1968 and lives with his family in Haslemere, Surrey.
Francis has a huge wealth of wine knowledge and over 25 years experience within the wine industry. He started his career at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, Sussex, and following a brief spell in hotel management became the hotel’s Head Sommelier at the tender age of 19. This was followed by a three-year stint in London working for a fine wine importer, where he managed the accounts of many renowned West End restaurants.
In the early nineties he took a course in wine chemistry at Plumpton College, which led him to work in wineries all over the world including Australia, California and Romania.
Taste of the Vine Ltd
On his return to the UK Francis began writing wine courses for the hotel and restaurant industry and eventually developed these into entertainment formats for use in the corporate arena. Founded in 1997, Taste of the Vine was the world’s first wine tasting company designed specifically for the corporate entertainment market. Taste of The Vine has now been running for 14 years and has entertained more than 120,000 people in 46 countries.
The Complete Wine Course™
In 2006 Francis launched The Complete Wine Course, the first interactive online wine course.
The Wine Adventurer®
Combining his strong passion for wine, travel, and a love of writing, Francis decided to begin a programme of adventures exploring the world’s unknown wine regions. Thus The Wine Adventurer was born, an intriguing and humorous quest to discover where the future greats could come from. The next trip is already in the planning stages and a further two are scheduled. Click here for details of Francis’ first book In and out of Africa …in search of Gérard Depardieu and be sure to check out The Wine Adventurer’s Blog: Slurp, Treasure, Avoid! - an irreverent wine review.
Other stuff
Francis is also one of the authors for Wine Opus from Dorling Kindersley, and in conjunction with PawPaw Apps has developed The Wine Navigator, as well as created Wine Trumps, in part due to a desire to see if he could categorise which the world’s top wines, but mostly due to pressure from his eight year old son.