The Wine Adventurer's blog
Francis Gimblett
30th November 2009
A weekend of juxtaposition. Nine hours of Saturday provided an unrelenting stream of new faces and the same conversation - well, less conversation and more my rapid-fire monologue which I hoped might leave the punters of Waterstone's Guildford dazed into submission and enquiring if they were limited to just one copy of the book each.
I broke the store record, but on reflection I suspect that, when faced with a long-haired man waving a bottle of wine around and subjecting them to a vinous version of Tourettes, few could have resisted. By the end of the day I had transformed myself into an animated automaton, a ruthless selling machine. I woke myself a few times in the night trying to sell copies of the book to my wife. Sunday provided the antidote - a hike in the Surrey Hills with not a soul to sell to. Although, had it not been pouring down, I fear that the dog walkers of Haslemere might have been reaching for their wallets.
26th November 2009
Just back from a book signing at Waterstone's Teddington, where I met hordes of adoring fans - fans of Dan Brown, Katie Price and Bob the Builder. After being asked for the third time if I was famous, I decided to engender a little joy instead of the deflation normally generated by my negative reply, and say I was Gérard Depardieu himself. I correctly supposed that the schoolgirls from Kingston Grammar wouldn't yet have heard of him, so was safe. They seemed happy enough, but I suspect they were only hanging around me because they'd spied my bottle and had been refused sale at the off-licence next door. Thankfully they moved on when one of their mothers entered the store. Leading them away, the woman looked quizzically at me as they explained who I was.
I'd been invited to the store on the evening that the Teddington Christmas lights were turned on, so there was a party atmosphere in the shop, and lots of free wine being handed out. It was either that or the store was celebrating the demise of Borders bookshops, also yesterday.
24th November 2009
Have been invited to write the North African section of a new wine encyclopaedia being launched in the US, as a leading authority on wine from the region. This is possibly due to the fact that no one else has bothered visiting it. I can see a career path, and am now looking for other subjects to become a leading authority on: Natural Mineral Waters of the Sahara and Icelandic Jams perhaps, though not in the same volume; too much to cover.
23th November 2009
Good winey weekend. Had a delicious Bardolino from Zeni; big, silky and pretty sexy for the style (normally restrained) which had been kindly left in the hotel bedroom at Lake Garda.
As I was drinking it back on a damp, leaf-strewn Haslemere hillside on Saturday evening, I remembered I had been checked into one of the delegate's bedrooms instead of the one allocated to me, and the wine had been meant for another. I drank a toast to him, and hoped that he had availed himself of a few coffee sachets. Also drank a bottle of Tunisian Magon Majus at home with lamb tagine and Philip (the former: Sunday lunch, the latter: my co-pilot on the trip), which provided a great match and a toothsome reminder of the adventure.
20th November 2009
My first ever blog entry. I don't really like talking about myself, but friends have told me a blog is the way forward. Despite not minding going in reverse from time to time, I've decided to come out of the blog closet and say a few things about what I'm doing on the basis that someone may find it interesting.
Last night I arrived back from a tasting gig in Bardolino on Lake Garda. The show was great fun, but occupied just a couple of hours out of the two day trip; so I spent most of my time on a foggy shore proofing the second edition of In and out of Africa ...in search of Gérard Depardieu. Occasionally the cloud cover would part to reveal the lofty Dolomites to the north, something that the conference delegates that I was there to entertain would not get to see during their three days cooped up in the hotel. They seemed very grateful for the powerpoint slides I showed them of the area at the start of my set however!
I also spent a while drawing red lines on a world map - the first stages of planning the next trip, but have done little more than setting a bad precedent for my children in ruining a perfectly good map by scribbling all over it.
