Francis Gimblett

Francis has been passionate about wine since a spell as trainee manager at the Grand Hotel in Brighton. There he found a love for the subject and became a sommelier. A promotion to head sommelier followed nine months later, only a year after he was legally entitled to drink! Eager to experience more he moved to London, where he worked for a fine wine and whisky importer. After four years that included many tastings, travel and all the requisite exams, it was time for a sabbatical and he left the country to try his hand at winemaking.

Rich Oatley

After two years in radio, presenting two evening shows every week in the North of England, Rich moved the Show to Miami for syndication in the U.S. After the success of the road shows across the east coast, Rich returned to the UK to concentrate on hosting live events across London and the South East. However, it was his love for wine and a passion for cocktails that found him at Taste of the Vine’s cellar door in 2001. He has spent much time travelling wine regions, and mixing up a storm on a daily basis in his cocktail bar at home, earning himself the moniker of ‘Daiquiri Dick’. Rich brings with him his own brand of engaging entertainment and great stage presence for both large shows and more intimate events alike.

Richard hosts: Wine and Cocktail shows and events

Peter Gentilli

Upon returning from the Alps after serving a season as a ski guide, Peter decided maybe it was time to get a semi-sensible job and soon found himself working for Berry Bros. & Rudd, the UK’s most respected wine shipper. Here he was able to indulge in his passion for wine and spirits whilst learning the trade from the very best. Four years of advising: hosting tastings and numerous vineyard visits endowed him with a broad knowledge of fine wine. His love of presenting led him to Taste of the Vine in 2004 and the rest, as they say, is history. Upon arrival Peter’s wide knowledge of spirits (worryingly broad) was also put to good use, and along with Richard, Kris and James he now hosts the company’s highly popular Cocktail tasting shows. Peter has also helped to develop ‘Taste of the Hop’, the company’s beer event and is a regular host, along with Peter Slinger.

When not treading the boards with TOTV, Peter can usually be found covered in oil and grease underneath one of his classic cars or enjoying the peace and tranquility of casting a fly on one of Hampshire’s chalk streams.

Peter hosts: Wine and Cocktail Shows and events 

Kris Benze

As well as being a highly talented flairing mixologist (and a host of Taste of the Vine’s Interactive Cocktail events since 2004) Kris is also a professional actor of screen and stage, having many credits to his name including major productions of The Merchant of Venice, West Side Story, The Birds and The Three Sisters. Kris brings a great deal of Charisma to his events, backed up by professional mixology qualifications and four years experience as a cocktail bartender. Should it be called for Kris is also a highly skilled Tenor and Jazz Dancer!

Kris hosts: Cocktail Shows

James Hudson

James Hudson began bartending in 1993 and soon became interested in cocktails and flair. After joining TGI Fridays in 1996 he started entering many national flair competitions and reached the finals each time. This experience led to training opportunities in the UK, Europe and Mauritius, which included bar tricks and flair along with product knowledge and cocktail making.

Although new to the Taste of the Vine team James is a popular entertainer and orator and has organised corporate events for a vast array of occasions.

James hosts: Cocktail Shows

Peter Slinger

Peter was brought up in a pub, has run four pubs and has worked close to the Licensed Trade for most of his life. He was one of the earliest members of the Campaign for Real Ale and once was able to boast that he had tasted the beer from every brewery in the country. Sadly for him, the birth of thousands of micro breweries across our nation has taken this boast away from him but he still maintains that "Beer is in my blood - most of the time, anyway!" Peter is famous for his rhyming verses and often closes a beer tasting event with a light hearted attack in rhyme on the marketeers who tried but failed to take the flavour out of all aspects of British food and drink. Peter has been hosting Taste of the Hop events for over four years and is a well loved and charismatic host.

Peter hosts: Beer Tasting Shows

Jilly Goolden – Wine Celebrity

Jilly Goolden is one of British television’s best-known faces. She presented television’s top rated food and drink series, Food & Drink for nearly two decades, becoming nationally famous as the most widely-known wine expert in the country.

Jilly has presented two highly successful television series on antiques for BBC1, The Great Antiques Hunt and Going,Going,Gone, and she makes regular appearances on BBC1’s Holiday programme. Spring 2003 saw her debut as presenter on BBC1’s, You Call the Shots. Jilly has also appeared on innumerable television programmes across all channels featuring both as a wine expert and as a personality. She has starred in a mini-drama written for her and directed by Pauline Quirke, and performed in the Vagina Monologues at the Royal Albert Hall.

Jilly is currently appearing in Britain’s Best Dish on ITV.

Jilly Goolden started out as a journalist, contributing at some time or another to most national daily and weekly newspapers and glossy magazines published in Britain. As well as writing about wine, she has written about travel, women’s issues, sex, the occult and a wide range of general features. She has written and contributed to books on wine and food as well as palmistry, which have featured strongly on the Sunday Times best-seller list.

Oz Clarke – Wine Celebrity

Oz Clarke's wine career began when he captained the wine-tasting team for Oxford University. After graduating, Oz spent a number of years as an actor before turning to writing professionally in 1984.

He has been wine correspondent of The Daily Telegraph. His first book, the first edition of Webster's Wine Guide (now annually published Oz Clarke's Wine Guide) won the first Wine Magazine Book of the Year Award and the first Wine Guild of the United Kingdom Wine Writer Award.

Oz was a long running presenter of BBC TV's Food and Drink programme where his remarkable tasting ability has won him great notoriety. In 1996 Oz filmed his own series An Australian Odyssey, in which he travelled around the outback and the cities retracing the remarkable steps of the Australian wine pioneers. Oz is currently starring in BBC TV’s OZ & James’s Big Wine Adventure.

As well as his work as a broadcaster Oz hosts many wine tastings throughout the year and produces his annual Wine Guide.

Oz Clarke lives in West London, where, when not writing about wine, he likes to avoid drinking altogether (except for the occasional pint of Fuller's ESB), playing any sport he can lay his hands on and dreaming wistfully of lying on a palm-fringed sandy beach somewhere near to the Equator. Oz is represented by Limelight Management.

Charles Metcalfe – Wine Celebrity

Charles Metcalfe is one of the best-known, most spontaneous and amusing wine critics in Britain. He presented drinks and occasionally food items for 12 years as one of the Richard-and-Judy team on the ITV programme, ‘This Morning’, and was the drinks expert for ‘Taste Today’ on the Taste TV CFW channel. He has also presented many wine and food programmes on the Granada Breeze satellite channel. His recent TV appearances have been as a wine expert on ‘Great Food Live’ and ‘Sunday Lunch Live’ on UK Food (BBC digital TV/Sky TV). He is co-chairman of the International Wine Challenge, the world’s biggest wine competition, held annually in London, and was one of the founders of WINE International magazine.

You can read Charles regularly in ‘blue Wine’ (if you speak Portuguese!), and he is the UK correspondent for ‘Wine Business International’, a trade magazine published in Germany. With his wife, Kathryn McWhirter, he is working on a book about Portuguese wines, food and places to visit, ‘The Wine & Food Lover’s Guide to Portugal’. ‘The Wines of Spain & Portugal’, also co-authored with Kathryn, won the 1989 Glenfiddich Drinks Book of the Year Award. They have also written two books about wine and food matching, the ‘Sainsbury’s Pocket Food & Wine Guide’, published in October 1995, and the ‘Marks & Spencer Quick and Easy Guide to Matching Wine with Food’. He also acts as a consultant for restaurant wine lists. Charles is represented by Limelight Management.

Roger Protz – Beer Celebrity

Roger Protz is Britain's leading beer writer and taster. He edits the annual CAMRA Good Beer Guide and has written 16 books about beer. His most recent book, 300 Beers To Try Before You Die, is one of the most successful books on the subject ever published. He gives regular talks and tastings about beer. In March 2007 he lectured on the history of beer and brewing at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, and in August 2007 gave a lecture at the University of Freising near Munich. He has twice been named Glenfiddich Drink Writer of the Year (1997 and 2004) and has been given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the British Guild of Beer Writers. He is contributing editor to www.beer-pages.com and writes for Beers of the World, What's Brewing and the Morning Advertiser. He is European Editor of All About Beer, the leading beer magazine in the United States.

Jim Murray – Whisky Celebrity

Jim Murray, described by the BBC as ‘the world guru of whisky’, is internationally renowned as a leading full-time whisky writer, and television and radio broadcaster.

He has written for a number of newspapers such as the Sunday, Daily and International Weekly Telegraphs, The Observer in London, The Chicago Tribune and the South African Sunday Times. He has written a number of books, including Jim Murray’s Irish Whiskey Almanac, One Hundred Malts, Classic Bourbon, The Complete Guide to Whiskey and Jim Murray’s Complete Book of Whiskey.

He is three times winner of the Whisky Writer of the Year in the prestigious Glenfiddich Award. The 2008 Jim Murray's Whisky Bible is recently published. Jim is represented by Limelight Management.