Wine Travel Guides
Comprehensive travel guides for visiting wine regions
"I wish I had my own Aube guide when I first visited the Aube!"
Tom Stevenson - Contributor
Wine Travel Guides was launched in 2007 and is owned by Wink Lorch, an experienced wine writer, editor and educator, based in the UK and France. She has assembled a professional team of writers to provide the inside knowledge for the Guides and worked with Ocean Design for the design and construction of the site. For more details, read below.
Wink Lorch is the creator, editor and owner of Wine Travel Guides. She has worked in wine for more than 25 years and also has experience in the book publishing world. As an independent traveller in the world’s wine regions, she has experienced the good, the bad, the frustrating and the truly rewarding.
Wink knew that from her regular trips to the Jura she could provide that essential insider view to travel in this unknown wine region and that other writers could no doubt do the same for the rest of France and beyond. The trick was to put it all together in one place. Read more on her blog at http://winklorch.blogspot.com
The Wine Travel Guides site as you view it today is just the beginning. Wink plans to expand and improve the site gradually over the years. This will include uploading Guides to other countries’ wine regions, linking with relevant news and blogs, and keeping up with the mobile revolution both for mapping and information.
In the meantime, if you have thoughts and comments about what you would like to see on Wine Travel Guides in the future, please contact Wink directly at winklorch@winetravelguides.com
Our team of expert contributors provide the inside knowledge for the Guides. Click on their names for more about each contributor’s background and work.
Elizabeth Gabay MW - Provence (part)
Jacqueline Friedrich - Loire Valley (part)
Jane Anson - Bordeaux
Jean-Pierre Renard - Burgundy (part)
Jim Budd - Loire Valley (part)
John Wheeldon - Northern Rhône
Liz Berry MW - Southern Rhône and Provence (part)
Michael Edwards - Burgundy (part)
Paul Strang - South West
Richard James - Languedoc-Roussillon
Rosemary George MW - Burgundy (Chablis)
Sue Style - Alsace
Tom Stevenson - Champagne
Wink Lorch - Jura and Savoie
Web Design:
Charles Harford of Ocean Design worked with Wink throughout the creation of the Wine Travel Guides project. An experienced graphic designer as well as web site builder, he designed and built the site, including a complicated management database to store the Guides themselves. Charles will continue to be involved in furthering the expansion and development, as well as the smooth running of the site. Visit www.ocean-design.co.uk.
Photography:
Mick Rock of Cephas Picture Library is the source for the largest stock of wine photographs worldwide. Mick’s own pictures have been used for most of the Guides. Thanks are due also to Nigel Blythe and Ian Shaw for their pictures used on the banner at the top of each page. Visit www.cephas.com.
Road maps and interactive maps:
Michelin provide the best road maps in the business so were the obvious choice for Wine Travel Guides. The technicians at ViaMichelin, together with our brilliant web designer Charles, made the maps work with this site in a way no-one has used on-line maps before.
Regional maps:
Andrew Thompson created the regional maps and the micro-region locator maps for each Guide. Andrew is a highly qualified and award-winning freelance geographer and cartographer with long experience working with wine book publishers among many other projects. With a Masters in Engineering Geology and experience in many geography projects, he is currently studying for an MSc in Geographic Information Science at University College London.
Editorial Help:
Brett Jones aka The Wine Maestro is a wine educator and occasional wine merchant. As a fluent French speaker with years of experience in the wine trade, he offered support at many levels in the production of Wine Travel Guides. Among much else, he has worked hard to verify the exact location of wine producers for the Michelin interactive maps. Visit www.thewinemaestro.co.uk.
Lyn Parry is an experienced wine and travel book writer and editor based in France. She provided assistance in the early stages of producing the Guides.
Ian Charlton was in the right pub at the right time and had a few hours to spare. A highly qualified systems analyst, he managed the mundane task of inputting all the text for the Guides into the database, ensuring everything was in the right format.
Thanks:
Wink would like to thank all of the above for contributing to and supporting this project. Thanks are also due for editorial and other guidance to Mark Newman, Tom Stevenson, family members and friends.