Where are they now? Andrew Barr’s life after wine writing

Once the enfant terrible of wine journalism, Andrew Barr has found a new life far from the tasting rooms of the past. From controversial critic to political campaigner, his journey is as compelling as the stories he once told. The post Where are they now? Andrew Barr’s life after wine writing appeared first on The Drinks Business.

Apr 25, 2025 - 11:12

Where are they now? Andrew Barr’s life after wine writing

Once the enfant terrible of wine journalism, Andrew Barr has found a new life far from the tasting rooms of the past. From controversial critic to political campaigner, his journey is as compelling as the stories he once told. Andrew Barr then and now, the first entrant of the db series Where are they now?

Andrew Barr then and now, the first entrant of the db series Where are they now?

Andrew Barr was wearing a suit and tie, topped off by a yarmulke under a trilby when I caught up with him in London. I don’t recall Andrew once wearing a suit or tie, let alone a yarmulke, in all the time I knew him as a wine writer. Not having seen or heard of Andrew since the days of The Octagon (the Young Turks of the wine press set up in opposition to the Circle of Wine Writers) for at least two decades, this persona came as a bit of a shock. Other than that, and the loss of a good deal of hair, he looked and sounded remarkably similar to when he was branded the enfant terrible of wine for his controversial book, Wine Snobbery. Wine Snobbery, an Insider’s Guide to the Booze Business, was written in 1987 when Andrew was 26 and published the following year. It emerged from his reviewing a book about pesticide residues in wine and coincided with the 1985 so-called antifreeze (diethylene glycol) scandal in Austria. "I was hacked off by the attitude of the wine trade who were doing their best to sweep it under the carpet. I didn’t realise quite how the world worked and thought it was the job of the journalist to expose the truth." The focus of Wine Snobbery was satirising the many shibboleths accompanying wine and wine trade malpractices. The extent of his knowledge of the wine trade and more widely, the wine industry would be remarkable for a man twice his age. Dare I suggest it, it repays re-reading, or reading if you haven’t come across it before for its astonishing attention to detail. At a time when English wine was still considered something of a bad joke, he predicted: "When the bottle-fermented English sparkling wines which are presently being developed are put on the market, it may be demonstrated that champagnes are not necessarily superior."

Controversy, criticism and legal battles

Many found Andrew’s iconoclastic views unpalatable. The wine merchant and author, Simon Loftus, wrote in Wine & Spirit: "It’s a book to hurl against the floor but which bounces back, demanding your attention." In one chapter, Andrew criticises wine merchants who puff their own wines without declaring an interest. He used the word dishonest to mean morally wrong, but Serena Sutcliffe was so incensed that she sued Faber for referring to her frequent recommendations for wines she imported without declaring an interest. Faber said they’d stand by their man, and in due course La Serenissima, as she was known, dropped the case. When, in the American edition, Andrew criticised Robert Parker, his publisher, Simon & Schuster, who also published Parker, insisted that Andrew tone down the criticisms. That didn’t stop him declaring Parker "not infallible", in particular on Burgundy and German wine. He also had a go at America’s philistine palate and love of white Zinfandel, UC Davis’s technical approach to wine, California’s "trick" in beating Bordeaux with faster-maturing wines and ludicrous health warnings, all the while reiterating many of the themes of the UK edition, such as over-expensive and badly stored bottles in restaurants, wine tastings as "bunk" and wine writers as amateurs and parasites and their dreadful writing "the repository of unintelligent and unsuccessful male Sloane Rangers". His next book, Drink, an Informal Social History, was less controversial but widened the spectrum. "No-one was doing serious original research into the history of wine and at same time there was a tendency in popular history writing to write books about single subjects intended to throw light on the bigger picture, so it made sense to write a general history of drink in the UK and, subsequently, A Social History of Drink in America". Seen through the prism of drink, Drink explores drinking habits, our choice of drinks in the context of social history and reasons for drinking a range of beverages from spirits to Coca-Cola.

Leaving wine journalism behind

After the Sunday Correspondent launched in 1995, Andrew became its wine correspondent, with a budget for travel and tasting. The job involved covering all kinds of drink, most of which were not taken as seriously as wine. He started to find that wine tastings were increasingly becoming a chore. "My ability to discern differences was disappearing; it was an increasing challenge. I remember thinking I can’t do all these wines anymore. It was some kind of message to say this isn’t what you should be doing." Acknowledging that he could no longer make the independent judgments required of a serious critic without rigorous tasting, he took the decision to get out of wine writing. His daughter Beatrice was born in 2000 and his wife Johanna went back to her job as a banker. She now works for a global charity working with children in the third world. He spent most of his time looking after Beatrice and simply found that he didn’t have the time to write. He took up gardening as a part-time semi-professional job and found it therapeutic. "It can be problematic on the back and knees, but I would recommend it to anyone because of the importance of connecting with nature."

Family, gardening and food history

He was already working on a history of food, researching restaurants, which in his view hadn’t been much studied. It’s still on the back burner, but he was distracted by bringing up his daughter and his newfound passion for gardening. "Gardening is very good about being in the moment. I started it as a new-age thing, but I hadn’t realised how much a part of Judaism it is. It was while waiting for Rebecca that Isaac went off and meditated in a field (Genesis 24-63). I became more Jewish." Andrew was happily cultivating his garden when his teenage daughter Beatrice started showing a growing interest in politics. He too became increasingly involved because he wanted to be able to engage with her. Then, when Covid came along, he was radicalised by lockdown. "The synagogues closed in 2020, with possibly one or two exceptions. When they reopened, they were requiring testing, masking, social distancing, and some insisted on vaccination. Many of us who had gone previously refused to go any longer."

From historian to political campaigner

Andrew started Jews for Justice in 2021, which is a UK Jewish group of people concerned with speaking out from a Jewish perspective against governmental restrictions on free speech and civil liberties, and against the increased polarisation of society. "I felt ostracised by the Jewish mainstream. Since 2020 everything has changed for me and I am now a political campaigner. I was a historian who happened to be Jewish and now I’m a Jewish historian, bringing a Jewish perspective to political events." Andrew wears a yarmulke ‘politically’ and is encouraging a "Switch-off Sabbath" as a way of observing the sabbath from a cultural rather than a religious perspective, to connect with ourselves, and, specifically, to reduce our reliance on smartphones. "We come from a wide spectrum, left/right, observant/non-observant, Zionist/anti-Zionist, following the path of our conscience wherever that may lead us and whatever the obstacles in the way." In his publication, Stiff-necked, the journal of a dissident Jew, Andrew takes forward the issues of governmental restrictions on free speech and civil liberties, accepting, self-deprecatingly that "the political and religious diversity of the group makes it difficult for us all to agree on anything". Does he regret giving up wine writing for a new life? "We had a community and it’s always sad when you leave your community’." Looking back on Wine Snobbery, from the perspective of a few decades on, he says: "I would write it differently today. There was no such thing as natural wines then. I would have been pro in principle, anti in practice. A lot would taste off to me." He has recently written a piece on the effects of climate change on English wine for The Daily Sceptic magazine. He still enjoys drinking wine, not least Pinot Noir, the grape variety he wrote a book on in 1992. He admits that he doesn’t keep up religiously (pardon the term) with the wine business, but in moving on, echoing the words of the Édith Piaf song, he has no regrets. Stay tuned for more stories from the fringes and frontlines of wine, as we continue to track down the voices that once stirred the glass and see where life has taken them now.