There’s a lot of chat about what makes good wine writing. I’m a terrible source of advice. In 25 years of doing it I’ve only been shortlisted once for an award and was physically removed from the ceremony for burping at a celebrity chef. But... un petit of tips...

Download @HemingwayApp and edit all your copy in it. It’ll make it punchy, more readable and cut out all the adverbs and Joycean sentences that wine writing seems to attract

Then get the Oblique Strategies app on your phone. It’s still the single best way of coming at things from a curious or interesting angle. “Give way to your worst impulse”. There, I did it. And there’s a column.

Now go for a run/walk/cycle/yoga/gym sesh. Writing routines are fundamentally like being at school. Learn, do sport, write up your homework.

Restrict yourself. It’s too easy to write about wine. You know lots. So make it hard. Study The Oulipo and give yourself constraints. I once wrote a series of tasting notes all in the style of Russian Formalism. It makes it more interesting

Give yourself challenges. In each series of @WineShowTV I have to get in a bizarre word (it was the Lancashire town of Bispham in series 1). Try to get in “the weight of a blue whale’s tongue” into your copy or something.

Look up Tom Veatch’s Benign Violation Theory. Pretty much any decent article will have this at its heart.

And try to introduce one Ancient Greek rhetorical device into your writing. Chiasmus is a good place to start.

I once wrote up a tasting of classed growth Bordeaux with the residents of a Salvation Army hostel in Glasgow. It was the best afternoon ever. They were amazing. It ticked just about every box. And it didn’t win an award. So I got drunk and burped at Gordon Ramsay.

Fin

@winematcher You’re right, it’s easy to knock