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About Me
This is the 'About Me' section of the website, a place where perhaps I should be blowing my trumpet as loud and I egotistically can. Or perhaps not. This is, after all, a website about wine, not about me.
Jancis
Robinson once asked me "Are you a car?", as the closest to a mugshot she could
find on this site was this picture of me, en route to Châteauneuf du Pape. Nowadays I
am brave enough to confess that I was not really just 'taking a break', as I
used to put it, but had in fact suffered a major mechanical failure, with
several very bent tiges pousseur (otherwise known as pushrods or, if that
leaves you lost, just
very important engine bits). But that's what you get for
taking a car only four years younger than yourself on a 5000 mile trip round
France and Switzerland, only 1400 miles after dropping in a brand new engine.
Ouch! I'm happy to say, however, that no such problems prevail today; excellent
service from
Edinburgh Sportscars is the main reason.
That trip to France was the beginning of my wine renaissance; as a student I built up a small cellar, but wine had taken a back seat in the early years of my career as a paediatrician, specialising in neonatal intensive care. But in France I purchased heavily (it's amazing just how much you can squeeze in a small car) and my cellar has never looked back. Today, like many wine writers I find I have dual careers, in my case wine writing comes packaged with medicine. For this reason I am happily resigned to the fact that I will never have a list of Decanter magazine articles, book chapters or wine writing awards to eulogise, and the only place one is likely to find my name in print is here. That, however, doesn't stop me travelling to the Loire and elsewhere, visiting vignerons and vineyards, or attending tastings of significance, and communicating my impressions of the wines I taste to Winedoctor readers.
In
2005 I was accepted into the Circle of Wine Writers, and so I assume the committee felt that
www.thewinedoctor.com was in keeping
with the organisation's own mission of maintaining a "high standard of wine writing
and promoting wines of quality". Well, that's my interpretation, anyway. Circle
or not, though, I'll continue to update this site with as much new and hopefully
current information as I possibly can. With all sites, pages do date with the
passing of time, but I'll endeavour to
see this isn't the case here. And
to keep Jancis and others happy, I've added another picture.
Other noteworthy pages:
My strengths doubtlessly include Bordeaux, but the same can be said for half of the wine writing fraternity. So perhaps the Loire is more of a selling point for me. This fabulous, still largely unspoiled, region of France boasts some wonderful wines; sublime Cabernet Franc and hedonistic Chenin Blanc are the region's secret weapons, although even these wines only scrape the surface. But that's wine for you; always something else to be discovered; a new winery, new cuvée, new vintage. A new bottle to be opened, to be savoured, and to be remembered - in my case, with the help of this site, which has been better than any tasting notebook I would ever have kept! I hope you find it informative and an enjoyable read. Whatever your opinion, the information is free, and I hope of good quality.
If you wish to contact me about anything on this site please do so.
Best wishes - Chris Kissack
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