I was brought up on a farm in Northern Ireland and, as a farmer’s daughter, fields and harvests were highlights of my childhood. I left County Tyrone to work in London as an investment analyst, via a degree at Queens University in Belfast. Since then, I’ve pretty much always been a writer – of investment research reports and finance, technology and environmental technology journalism - and I published a magazine called Cleantech.
My interest in wine began back in the 1990s, when I studied for the WSET level I and 2 exams. I had developed a taste for New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and it was through that that I became interested in wines of France's Loire Valley – having learnt that the Loire Sauvignon Blancs were the inspiration for the New Zealand winemakers. So, when I got together with my husband, Peter Marsh, who was living in the Loire, it wasn’t a difficult compromise to divide our time between London and the Centre Val de Loire region. I updated my wine knowledge with the WSET Level 3 qualification, and began blogging about wine.
Our French home is in the département of the Indre (36), which is not especially well known internationally as a wine region. The Indre is part of the historical French province of Berry. Although with no official status, Berry retains a strong cultural identity: our local Radio Station is France Bleu Berry, for example, and newspapers and sports teams identify as from Berry. Unlike neighbouring Touraine, there’s no Berry AOC for wine. But Berry has a long history of winemaking and the wines of Berry – and other Loire wines – are a key focus of my blog. I also blog about rare cépages (grape varieties), an interest inspired by my knowledge about climate change from my cleantech background.