Josh’s Wine List: six months in
It’s been six months since I started Josh’s Wine List. It’s a weekly email offering bitesize wine lessons, along with recommendations for affordable wines (£10 and under). Since launch, it’s been named a ‘Top 5 Newsletter’ by the Evening Standard and now has thousands of readers.
Back in January of this year, I started studying for a wine qualification provided by the WSET. This global body enrols tens of thousands of students worldwide each year.
I’ve been regularly drinking wine since I was 18, but for so long I was guessing and using random bits of knowledge.
I knew I liked Fleurie.
I knew I liked Chablis.
I knew I loved Cote du Rhone.
And yet, more often than not, I’d drink bottles of those wines and end up disappointed. I wanted to know why.
The WSET provides a rigorous, academic approach to studying wine. Most, I am sure, would find it quite boring.
But for me, completing that course brought a whole new love and pleasure from wine. The day-to-day bottles, those ones under £10 became far more interesting and I learnt to make better choices.
But the interesting bottles, those over £10: my enjoyment for those went up infinitely overnight.
There’s 30 million regular wine drinkers in the UK. Out of 50 million adults. And only a few thousand have completed a formal course in it.
That’s when I created Josh’s Wine List
I wanted to share this new joy I had for wine. I wanted to give just a little bit back to everyone I knew who drank wine so they could get some of this newfound pleasure and — importantly — confidence.
The premise was simple:
- A bitesize lesson each week written in a non-pretentious way
- Some things I’d tasted and recommendations of good affordable wines
- Demystified jargon because what does gun flint really mean?
Today
The email goes out to a thousand subscribers each Tuesday at 8am. Hundreds more read it via friends or online afterwards.
I’ve recorded a podcast this year introducing English Wine: a whole new learning experience in itself. For this, I interviewed 20 winemakers and this will very shortly be launching soon.
Next year, I’m going to be exploring running some tastings in the same vein of the email and podcast: unpretentious, clear and fun.
Thank you to everyone who has come along for the ride so far.
