The Jancis Robinson Story podcast

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I hope all and any forumites will enjoy listening to The Jancis Robinson Story podcast, episode one of which was released on Sunday. You can find episode one here.

For those who are interested, I wrote a short post about the making of the series, as follows:

I made The Jancis Robinson Story podcast the slow way: it took 182 hours to create four hours of finished material.

Each interview, with 11 different guests, was recorded in person. Not only does in-person recording give better control over audio quality but it allows much better rapport: no awkward internet latency to disrupt the flow, and plenty of natural eye contact.

Incidentally, the podcast is audio-only for two reasons. Firstly because that is much less intrusive when recording, giving a more relaxed conversation. Secondly, audio-only is the original format for podcasts, allowing specific production design from the outset, using narration and ambient sound to paint the picture.

I wanted to avoid the usual podcast tropes. There are absolutely no popping corks or clinking glasses. There’s no generic library music. Each episode starts with a slow fade-in of a background sound that I recorded on location – trains pulling out of King’s Cross station, summer rain at Jancis’s house in France – to set the scene.

The conversations themselves were tightly edited, so that the story could be told from multiple perspectives, building a coherent story while retaining natural cadence. That meant cutting the recordings into 255 separate clips in order to construct seven 40-minute episodes.

Finally, all the editing and mastering was done manually. While AI audio tools are impressive, they can’t make human decisions – sometimes I wanted to keep background noise or pauses to add colour to the episode. Balancing the voices with volume, panning and EQ was done by ear rather than algorithm.

The podcast is intended to be the definitive story of how Jancis went from an unassuming background to become the world’s most authoritative voice in wine – my words, not hers! Any feedback welcome, and look out for the next six episodes, coming out every Sunday between now and Christmas.

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Just a quick note to say that this was brilliant! Highly recommend. Richard, the little touches like the river burbling and the gravel crunching under boots are so nice!

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Given the amount of food and wine consumed by the Lander/Robinson duo, one would expect both of them to look like the Michelin man. I am looking forward to discovering the secrets.

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The answer to the diet question is so shocking --I was stunned— that I cannot print it here. The curious must listen for the answers! I will say this: the work probably led to reading mathematics at Oxford.

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Fascinating listening to Jancis’ podcasts and the references to Cumbria. My mother was born in Carlisle and went to the County high school.
The river Eden is a glorious waterway. The only south-north flowing game river in the UK.
I am sure Jancis must have had days out in the seaside town of Silloth and had a Longcakes ice cream. Longcakes was a sweet shop in Silloth now long since gone. Carrs of Carlisle made splendid biscuits particular chocolate ones.
One interesting fact about Carlisle is that during WW1 there was a huge munitions factory nearby and the Irish immigrant labour used to get roaring drunk on payday, so the pubs and breweries were nationalised, there were restrictions on how many rounds customers could consume, and remained that way until the mid 60s. Just in time for Jancis to have a free rein for pub drinking.
Fell walkers always had Wainwright books with sketches of fell walks.
If you want to know what north Cumbria looks like, try and see the paintings of Sheila Fell. An extraordinary artist who lived in Aspatria. Sadly she died young but her pictures captured the atmosphere of north Cumbria.
As I recall the best hotel wine list in north Cumbria was at Armathwaite hall, on the shores of Bassenthwaite lake. Incidently it is the only lake in the lake district, all the others are either meres or waters.

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Yes, and Carrs Water Biscuits are an essential addition to many trade wine tastings!

I’m glad you’re enjoying the podcast, Andrew – episode three has just come out today.

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Really enjoying listening to the podcast - and looking forward to the forthcoming episodes - great job Richard, Jancis and all of the guests who contributed.

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Many thanks Mark! Three more episodes to go, hope you enjoy them.

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Richard, I’d like to congratulate you on putting together such a fascinating series. Great listening. Happy Christmas, Andy

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Thanks so much for saying so, Andy! So glad you’ve enjoyed it - and very happy Christmas to you too, from Melbourne’s ‘coolest Christmas in 20 years’. Typical!

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I just listened to most of this while pottering about doing post Christmas/ early New Year tasks in the kitchen. Can I add my congratulations to Richard for doing the whole thing so well; also, your chuckle as you listen to JR’s answers enhances the programme.

As well as a kind of biography, tracing Jancis’ life acts to mark out phases in the wine trade: the Seventies really are a kind of distant age in wine terms, when even California seemed exotic and, perhaps happily, nobody put a numerical score on anything. And it’s a tracer of England too, the class system, and much more. When did people stop drinking sherry in mid-morning, for example? Or was that only ever a minority interest?

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Not to steer the conversation away from Richard’s brilliance but I only discovered that sherry drinking mid-morning was acceptable while visiting Jerez in October. Since then, I’ve been upset that we don’t have cafe sherry culture. Do you mean to tell me that this used to be a thing outside of Jerez?!

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One of my favourite restaurant experiences ever was dropping into St John Bread and Wine at 11 am, when the eccles cakes came out of the oven. They were listed on the board as eccles cakes + sherry, so it felt perfectly ok to be drinking before noon – and they were delicious together! Unfortunately though I made a mental note to repeat this at home, I’ve yet to make an eccles cake or instigate a morning sherry tipple …

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Thanks for the kind words, Robert! To continue the morning sherry theme, after recording with Hugh Johnson one fine August morning in London, he invited me to share a glass of Amontillado with him. We sat in his back garden and he told me about his trees while sipping this glorious sherry - one of those real pickling moments.

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I think it was a thing amongst old school Englishmen of a certain class, certainly in the Seventies. In Christopher Fielden’s memoir, he recalls ‘sherry time’, seemingly late morning, as a good time to pitch for business in Jermyn Street (London).

But then, if you watch ‘Mad Men’, they seem to be offering whisky at all hours.

I sometimes wonder if business wasn’t permanently semi-pickled almost all the time.

I have a friend who was a civil servant in the Treasury under Ken Clarke (mid-90s). He reckoned Clarke had a strategy of taking everyone out for lunch at the pub and then being the only one who could coherently chair the afternoon meeting after three pints of beer each, thereby ensuring he got through all the measures he wanted

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I think we should bring back ‘sherry time’ - preferably with Tara’s eccles cakes! And I wouldn’t mind if we also brought back a few more politicians who enjoy food and drink and care about their pubs and restaurants…

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Inspired by this thread, I just did a parish sherry and charcuterie event mid-morning today (Saturday) for the fifteen or so 8am Sunday congregation members at my church and it went well. None of the sherries were particularly distinguished, but I laid out a fino, an amontillado and a ‘cream’, alongside the charcuterie; all had their takers, but it was the fino which got finished first, which is the key sign of preference, I always think. (Though for me, I turned to the amontillado.)

Also, with an 11am arrival, everyone had come and gone by 12.45, so I realise that this sort of fits a hospitality slot in which you’re being hospitable but it’s not wiping out an entire evening.

A possible option for a jr.com tasting?

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Wish I wasn’t across the pond. I love this idea!

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