We go to great lengths to persuade the world’s finest wine writers to share their knowledge with our readers. We seek to blend unrivaled expertise with less familiar (but no less important) voices, drawing on experience while, at the same time, nourishing and promoting new talent.


Katrina Alloway teaches marketing and media at an international boarding school in London. She has a particular interest in working with multilingual dyslexic students, when she calls upon her first master’s degree


in applied linguistics and her second master’s in special and inclusive education. However, sometimes she likes to revisit her former career as a tastings coordinator and delve into a glass of wine and explore its surrounding culture.


Chloe Ashton was still young when her wine story began, thanks to her eno-curious father and regular trips between England and France. After reading classics at King’s College, London, she followed her nose to Bordeaux, where she immersed herself in the region’s wines and the history of their unique trading system. During her formative professional years working for Fine+Rare Wines, Chloe developed her understanding of wine investment across key markets, which she then applied over four years working in close collaboration with top wine producers at fine-wine intelligence agency Wine Lister. Chloe is now commercial director for Swiss-based fine-wine portfolio curator 1275 Collections.


Essi Avellan MW is Finland’s first Master of Wine. For her MW studies, she wrote her dissertation on single-vineyard Champagnes and won both the Lily Bollinger Medal for best taster and the Tim Derouet Memorial Award for best overall student. Essi also holds a Master of Science degree in business administration. Recognized as a Champagne and sparkling-wine specialist, Avellan is the author of several wine books, including Essi Avellan’s Champagne, and has revised and extended the third and fourth editions of Tom Stevenson’s award-winning Christie’s World Encyclopedia of Champagne and Sparkling Wine. Essi is a jury member at the Champagne & Sparkling Wine World Championships.


Bruno Besa is originally from Friuli but has been living and working in London since 1986. After almost 20 years in hotels and restaurants, he founded Astrum Wine Cellars in 2001, together with old friends and former colleagues Max Folli and Stefano Benato from the groundbreaking brigade at Stefano Cavallini Restaurant at the Halkin Hotel. Since his days as head sommelier


10 | THE WORLD OF FINE WINE | ISSUE 79 | 2023


there, Bruno has been highly respected for his passion and commitment to artisanal wines and for bringing attention to a number of exciting areas, grape varieties, and wineries, as well as championing the classics. Today, Bruno is managing director of Astrum Wine Cellars, representing around 50 wineries and distilleries from Italy and Central Europe.


Michel Bettane is France’s leading wine critic. Born in Maryland, USA, he graduated in classics, which he proceeded to teach from 1975 to 1991. He contributed to La Revue du Vin de France for more than 20 years, most recently as its editor. He also co-writes, with Thierry Desseauve, the acclaimed annual Grand Guide des Vins de France and Magnum, and organizes the annual Le Grand Tasting in Paris. After wine, his greatest passion is listening to classical music.


Raymond Blake is a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, and previously worked as a schoolmaster. He is one of Ireland’s leading wine writers and was wine editor of the highly regarded Food & Wine magazine from its launch in 1997 until it went online in 2019. He has also written for numerous other publications, principally on wine but also on a diverse range of topics including food, travel, classical music, education, history, and culture. He is the author of four critically acclaimed books, including Breakfast in Burgundy: A Hungry Irishman in the Belly of France (2014) and Côte d’Or: The Wines and Winemakers of the Heart of Burgundy (2017), the latter shortlisted for the Louis Roederer International Wine Writers’ Awards 2018. His most recent title, published this year, is Wine Talk: An Enthusiast’s Take on the People, the Places, the Grapes, and the Styles. Raymond and his wife, violinist Fionnuala Hunt, have owned a house in Burgundy since 2006. He is much in demand as a presenter at themed wine dinners and tutored tastings.


CONTRI§BUTORS


Ch’ng Poh Tiong, a lawyer by training, is a highly influential and prolific publisher, writer, consultant, lecturer, and wine judge. The Singaporean is recognized as a Bordeaux specialist and posts daily on chngpohtiong.com. His contribution to the wine world includes founding the International Congress of Chinese Cuisine & Wine and acting as regional chair for Decanter World Wine Awards. He is a columnist for The World of Fine Wine, contributes to academieduvinlibrary.com and Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book, and published 100 Top Chinese Restaurants of the World in 2019 and 2020. He somehow found time to obtain a postgraduate certificate in Chinese art from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.


Harry Eyres has become one of the most eloquent advocates of the worldwide Slow movement. Having worked for leading newspapers and magazines as a theater critic, wine writer, and poetry editor, in 2004 he created the Slow Lane column in FT Weekend. Promoting the thoughtful enjoyment of the often uncostly and uncostable pleasures and values that make life worth living, Slow Lane ran until 2015. He has published a volume of poetry, Hotel Eliseo (Hearing Eye), and gives regular poetry readings. Eyres is also the author of The Beginner’s Guide to Plato’s The Republic (Hodder & Stoughton), the memoir Horace and Me: Life Lessons from an Ancient Poet (Bloomsbury; shortlisted for the PEN/Ackerley Prize in 2014), and Seeing Our Planet Whole: A Cultural and Ethical View of Earth Observation (Springer). His wine books include Wine Dynasties of Europe and the Viking/Penguin Guide to Cabernet Sauvignon. He was editor of the Which? Wine Guide 1995–96. He lives in London and enjoys playing tennis and the piano.


Simon Field MW studied French literature at Oxford and then, for whatever reason, doggedly pursued the qualification of a chartered accountant. The silver linings of various French postings were mainly vinous and


prompted the somewhat unexpected career move to shop assistant in his local Oddbins in Belsize Park. More than two decades of buying for Berry Bros & Rudd ensued, where he specialized in the wines of Spain, Champagne, and the Rhône Valley, inter alia, passions that he now indulges somewhat less formally but, if possible, with even greater pleasure.


WFW contributing editor Andrew Jefford, the son of a vicar and eldest of three brothers, grew up in Norfolk, England. He studied English at the University of Reading, then pursued postgraduate studies on Robert Louis Stevenson with Malcolm Bradbury at the University of East Anglia, before working as an editor for Paul Hamlyn’s Octopus Group. In the late 1980s, he got the chance to combine his passions for wine and writing, and since then he has worked as a freelance drinks journalist and broadcaster. He has written several books and has won a plethora of distinctions for his work, including three successive Louis Roederer Awards in 2006, 2007, and 2008, three more in 2010, 2011, and 2012, and another two in 2016 and 2017. The New France was awarded the André Simon award, Lanson award, and Veuve Clicquot USA Book of the Year in 2003. His most recent book is an anthology, Drinking with the Valkyries (2022). He lives with his family in France, after a stint as a senior research fellow at the University of Adelaide and as wine writer in residence to the Australia Wine 2030 project.


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