Oz Clarke OBE | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 1949 (age 73–74)[ citation needed ] |
| Occupation | Actor, broadcaster, television presenter and wine writer |
| Nationality | British |
| Subject | Wine |
Robert Owen Clarke OBE (born 1949), known as Oz Clarke, is a British wine writer, actor, television presenter and broadcaster. [1]
Clarke's parents were a chest physician and a nursing sister. He is of Irish descent and was brought up Roman Catholic. [2] His mother was born in Graiguenamanagh. He was brought up near Canterbury with a brother and a sister. Clarke became a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral and subsequently won a choral scholarship to The King's School, Canterbury. He later attended Pembroke College, Oxford where he studied theology and psychology and became Common Room President. He played University hockey, was University punting champion, sang with Schola Cantorum, and acted with the dramatic society and the Oxford Revue at the Edinburgh Festival. He also captained the wine-tasting team. [1]
He claims to have been given his chosen name, Oz, "in the school showers" when he was 13, because he played cricket like an Australian cricketer. [3] The Australian cricket team was touring the UK at the same time. Prior to this, he answered to the name Robbie, or Robin formally. His goal was to educate British people about making wine approachable to the British public, and introduce them to the high quality wines that Australians and most of the Western World enjoys. [4]
Having grown up in Kent, Clarke played cricket for Babes of Kent schoolboys and supports Gillingham. He can be seen wearing a Gillingham scarf in Oz and Hugh Drink to Christmas , broadcast prior to Christmas 2009 and James May's Man Lab Christmas Special, broadcast prior to Christmas 2011, both on BBC Two.
After Oxford, Clarke started a career as a full-time actor and singer. His first job was at Northampton, followed by Sheffield, Manchester and Leicester. He then worked for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, the Old Vic and Chichester. In the West End, he appeared with Michael Crawford in Billy at Drury Lane, sang Sweeney Todd in Sweeney Todd, played all the men in the Mitford Girls and General Peron in Evita. It was during this acting period that he was drafted in to the newly formed English Wine Tasting Team, who won competitions against France, Germany and the USA, among others. This proved crucial for his career development.
When a wine expert dropped out of the new BBC show Food and Drink , the acclaimed television producer Peter Bazalgette allegedly shouted, 'Get me the actor who knows about wine'. They did, and Clarke's career began to shift away from theatre towards wine, but not out of the entertainment business. He and Jilly Goolden became the voices and faces of wine in Britain for a generation. [5]
He played one of the first criminals apprehended by Superman in the 1978 film Superman , a terrorist in Superman II , a Special Branch man in Who Dares Wins and Balthasar in Stuart Burge's 1984 film of Much Ado About Nothing. He sang the baritone role – and Sam Gamgee's song – in the BBC adaptation of The Lord of the Rings and recorded Stephen Oliver's A Man of Feeling for Granada TV.
On December 2011, Clarke was one of the team in the BBC Two programme James May's Man Lab Christmas Special.
While performing in Sheila Hancock's Dandy Dick, he joined the Sunday Express as their first wine writer. He then became wine correspondent of The Daily Telegraph .
In 1982, Clarke won the last World Wine Tasting Championship, a wine tasting event that has not been repeated since then. [6]
Clarke has written several award-winning books, and is generally regarded as the New World champion who led Britain's wine revolution in the 1990s and 2000s, [7] but he is also a passionate supporter of the Old World classics, in particular Bordeaux wine. Clarke has appeared on numerous radio and TV shows, including Food and Drink , the long-running BBC Food show, for which he became well known in the UK for his stint as the wine expert alongside Jilly Goolden, and A Question of Taste and The Wine Programme for BBC Radio 4. He made three successful BBC TV series with James May: Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure in France and California, and Oz and James Drink to Britain . [8] The comedian Hugh Dennis was later brought into this concept as Oz and Hugh Drink to Christmas was broadcast in 2009, and the later series, Oz and Hugh Raise the Bar , was broadcast over the Christmas period in 2010.
Clarke stated in Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure that he was banned from the Champagne region of France in the 1990s for having made statements suggesting that champagne was deteriorating in value while rising in price.
In November 2008 a survey by the wine industry consultancy firm Wine Intelligence was made public, having polled the views of more than 1,500 regular UK wine drinkers. Results show that Clarke was the most recognised wine critic in the UK. [9] [10] In 2009 he won the International Wine Challenge Personality of the Year award jointly with James May, in the same week as winning the Louis Roederer International Book of the Year for his book Bordeaux. In 2010 he and James May won the TRIC Award for 'best documentary' (for Oz and James Drink to Britain). He was also awarded an Officier de l'Ordre du Mérite Agricole by the French Government.
Oz Clarke's writing is now published by Pavilion Books, an imprint of Anova Books. In December 2010, he launched his very first app for use on Apple's iPhone and iPad, through Anova Digital: Oz Clarke's Best Wines 2011 and Oz Clarke's Xmas Wines.
In October 2018 his new book Red & White was published by Little, Brown and Company and he embarked on promotional book tour [11] [12]
He is a cousin of Irish journalist and broadcaster Olivia O'Leary.[ citation needed ]
In a 2019 interview, Clarke revealed he was married, with a 3-year-old daughter, his only child. [13]
Clarke was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2020 New Year Honours for services to broadcasting and journalism. [14]
Robert McDowell Parker Jr. is a retired American wine critic. His wine ratings on a 100-point scale and his newsletter The Wine Advocate are influential in American wine buying and are therefore a major factor in setting the prices for newly released Bordeaux wines. This made him the most widely known and influential wine critic in the world.
James Daniel May is an English television presenter and journalist. He is best known as a co-presenter of the motoring programme Top Gear alongside Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond from 2003 until 2015. He also served as a director of the production company W. Chump & Sons, which has since ceased operating. He is a co-presenter of the television series The Grand Tour for Amazon Prime Video, alongside his former Top Gear colleagues, Clarkson and Hammond.
Jack Vettriano is a Scottish painter. His 1992 painting The Singing Butler became a best-selling image in Britain.
The Carménère grape is a wine grape variety originally planted in the Médoc region of Bordeaux, France, where it was used to produce deep red wines and occasionally used for blending purposes in the same manner as Petit Verdot.
Jill Priscilla Goolden is an English wine critic, journalist and television personality.
Steven Spurrier was a British wine expert and merchant who was described as a champion of French wine. Spurrier organised the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976, which unexpectedly elevated the status of California wine and promoted the expansion of wine production in the New World. He was the founder of the Academie du Vin and Christie's Wine Course, in addition to authoring and co-authoring several wine books.
Fat Bastard is a brand of French wine introduced in 1998 and produced and distributed by a French and British partnership that began as a collaboration between French winemaker Thierry Boudinaud and British wine importer Guy Anderson. Originally launched as a Chardonnay, the brand has been expanded to include additional varietals including Merlot, Syrah, Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon. It is sold primarily in the United States, and has been discontinued on the U.K. market. The price point for the brand is at the modest "entry level", at about $8 per bottle, and about 420,000 cases per year for the brand are exported to the U.S. market. The brand's Chardonnay is the largest-selling brand of French Chardonnay in the United States. The label features a cartoon hippopotamus.
Ken Hom is a Chinese-American chef, author and television-show presenter for the BBC, specialising in Asian and East/West Cuisine. Having already appointed an honorary Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2009 for "services to culinary arts", he was further appointed an honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2022.
John Michael Broadbent, MW was a British wine critic, writer and auctioneer in a capacity as a Master of Wine. He was an authority on wine tasting and old wines.
Andrew Jefford is an English journalist, poet, and writer, the author of various books and columns on wine, whisky, travel and perfume.
The Vesper is a cocktail that was originally made of gin, vodka, and Kina Lillet. Since that form of Lillet is no longer produced, modern bartenders need to modify the recipe to mimic the original taste, with Lillet Blanc or Cocchi Americano as a typical substitute.
Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure is a BBC television programme of which two series have been broadcast. It was presented by wine expert Oz Clarke and motoring journalist James May, with Clarke aiming to educate May about wine while undertaking a road trip. The first season focused on France and the second on California. The sequel series Oz and James Drink to Britain, broadcast in 2009, made the change to a focus on the variety of beverages available in the United Kingdom.
John Radford, born in Nottingham on 1 December 1946, died on 19 October 2012, was a British writer and broadcaster in the field of wine and food, with an emphasis on Spain. He was educated at Stamford School in Lincolnshire.
Tim Atkin is a British Master of Wine, and a wine journalist, broadcaster and commentator. He is also a judge of several international wine competitions and a photographer.
Anthony Rose is a British wine journalist known for his column in The Independent, which ran for the length of the print version from 1986 to 2016. He also contributes to publications such as Decanter, The Real Review , The Financial Times How to Spend It online and The Oxford Companion to Wine . Rose has contributed to several wine books including Wine Report, The Oxford Companion to Wine, and for five years co-authored the annual consumer guide Grapevine with Tim Atkin. Rose was one of four UK wine writers, along with Joanna Simon, David Williams and Jane Parkinson, to launch an online wine ratings magazine for the UK called The Wine Gang. He is the panel chair for Southern Italy at the Decanter World Wine Awards.
Howard Park Wines are Margaret River and Great Southern wine specialists and a family-owned winery owned by the Burch family, which is responsible for such brands as Howard Park, MadFish, and Marchand & Burch. With an established winery based in Margaret River, Western Australia and vineyards in the Great Southern, the Burch family are the first Australians to gain ownership in the production of a French Burgundian Grand Cru.
Margaret River is the major geographical indication wine region in southwest Western Australia, with 5,840 hectares under vine and 215 wineries as at 2012. Margaret River wine region is made up predominantly of boutique size wine producers; although winery operations range from the smallest crushing 3.5 tonne per year to the largest around 2,500 tonne. The climate of Margaret River is more strongly maritime-influenced than any other major Australian region. It has the lowest mean annual temperature range, of only 7.6 °C, and as well as the most marked Mediterranean climate in terms of rainfall, with only 200 millimetres of the annual 1160 millimetres falling between October and April. The low diurnal and seasonal temperature range means an unusually even accumulation of warmth. Overall the climate is similar to that of Bordeaux in a dry vintage. Although the region produces just two percent of total Australian wine grape production, it produces over 20 percent of Australia's premium wine market. The principal grape varieties are split 40/60 between red and white; Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Shiraz, Merlot and Chenin Blanc.
Oz and Hugh Drink to Christmas is a BBC television programme in which wine personality Oz Clarke and comedian Hugh Dennis travel through Britain to sample a wide array of seasonal Christmas beverages, including whisky, winter ales, mulled wine, wassail, sloe gin, Buck's Fizz, Port wine and Sherry. Upon its 20 December 2009 broadcast on BBC Two, it had a viewership of approximately 2.4 million with an audience share of 9%.
Will Lyons is a journalist, newspaper columnist, award-winning wine writer and broadcaster. He is most widely known for his writing in The Wall Street Journal and The Sunday Times.
Oz and Hugh Raise the Bar is a BBC television programme in which wine personality and expert Oz Clarke and comedian and actor Hugh Dennis travel across Ireland and the United Kingdom in order to sample and discover the wide array of British and Irish Alcoholic beverages. In this series they collected different beverages from each location before selling them at a pub in Shustoke. Currently only one series has been made.
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