ORIGINAL SNIFFS I was lucky; growing up in the English countryside exposes one to some incredible smells. There are wildflowers, hedgerows dividing the fields, different trees ... If you are interested in the senses [the country] is a wonderful training ground. My parents were young and hard up when I was a child. We didn't have a historical cellar or anything but I remember being allowed little sips of champagne by my grandfather.
ITCHY FEET I was travel-mad from a very young age. I was travelling to Scandinavia in cargo boats when I was 13. After university, [where] I studied the Latin languages, I saw my two years as a translator with Unesco [the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation] as a means to an end - to live abroad and move around. I was in the cultural section and there were some wonderful projects. I worked in Egypt when Unesco was involved with water rising over monuments during dam building.
A TASTE OF SUCCESS I didn't go into the wine trade as a first career because I didn't see where I would fit in; I wasn't going to inherit a chateau or anything like that and it was an extraordinarily male-dominated world. Eventually, in the 1970s, I thought, 'I've just got to get into it because that is what I'm fascinated by'. It was still very anti-women in England. I thought, 'If I get the master of wine [qualification], it is instant credibility and they will have to take notice of me.' I got a dispensation to do it quite quickly and did so in four years.
With the MW you've got the theoretical side and the tasting side; it's not only your brain engaged but also your senses. You come out of the exam thinking, 'I'm wonderful, I'm a master of wine', but you soon realise that you know not very much. For me, it was the decades after when I really learned.
The more you travel and the more you sniff, the more you'll add to your vocabulary. My first experience of an eastern spice market was in Cairo. When I remember that smell, certain wines, particularly ones made from shiraz, suddenly make more sense to me.
ALL IN THE GENES You can train most people [to taste wine] but what divides someone who is good from someone who is especially talented might be a genetic element. It's a bit like music; you can be taught to a certain level but then [all] you've got is someone with perfect pitch. My mother had naught to do with the wine trade but she had an unbelievable palate; she could always identify any ingredient in any dish. I think I got something from her. I haven't got children so I'm afraid I'm not going to pass it on. I was too much of a career girl to have children.
NOBODY NOSE ME BETTER My husband [British wine importer and author David Peppercorn] got his MW in the early 60s, before we met. He had lectured me once but he asked me out at the reception [after I was given] my master of wine. That first evening, we drank a lot of fantastic old, mature champagne. Maybe that's what did it [laughs]. And we've never stopped since.
