24th January 2025
It started on the beach. It was late summer and we were drinking some Greek rosé, listening to the waves gently lapping against the shore....in Kent.
Having sold my wine shop and bar in west London to move down to the coast, I now had a bit more time to get back to writing about wine. (You can read more about what I am up to in the about section.)
Back in the days when blogging was the rage, I wrote as SipSwooshSpit. But running the shop and bar with lots of events, a wine club - plus the associated online shop and social accounts - left little time for my personal website (especially as, from 2015-2019, I also wrote a monthly column for The Wine Merchant magazine as Adeline Mangevine).
So, the content started dipping after April 2013, and the site pretty much just sat there for the next 11 years, bar the occasional post.
Now, The Beach Sommelier has risen from the ashes of SipSwooshSpit. I've moved across a lot of the content, and had a blast re-reading my post along the way - adding the odd postscript where my 2012 self really needed to meet 2025 me...what a wine journey I've been on.
Some I've put on home page, so it doesn't look too empty, and some in the archive. Others I have ditched because they were too cringey or dull.
So who's this site for? At the moment, it's a bit of a shop window, as I set up more tastings and events. But it's also for the wine curious. People keen to know a bit more about wine. I won't be reviewing or recommending specific wines though, unless as part of a wider story on a region or producer. I'm definitely not going to bore you with what I've been drinking. I'll save that for Instagram...
Follow me @thebeachsommelier.