Oz Clarke’s wine career began when he captained the wine-tasting team for Oxford University. After graduating, Oz spent a number of years as an actor for the Royal Shakespeare Company, The National Theatre, The Old Vic, Chichester and the West End. Before turning to writing professionally in 1984, Oz was by then a leading West End actor (playing all the men in the Mitford Girls, Sweeny Todd and Peron in Evita).
He has been wine correspondent of The Daily Telegraph. His first book, the first edition of Webster’s Wine Guide (now annually published Oz Clarke’s Wine Guide) won the first Wine Magazine Book of the Year Award and the first Wine Guild of the United Kingdom Wine Writer Award.
Since then he has written Oz Clarke’s New Essential Wine Book, a further fifteen editions of his Wine Guide and The Pocket Wine Guide, which again won for Oz the Wine Guild and Wine Magazine Book of the Year Award, Sainsbury’s Regional Wine Guides and Sainsbury’s Pocket Book of Wine. Oz Clarke’s New Classic Wines is a major book about new world-class winemakers and their wines that should, in Oz’s opinion, be regarded as ‘New Classics’. This book won the Glenfiddich, The Andre Simon and The Wine Guild Awards.
In 1995 he launched the Microsoft Wine Guide on CD ROM, which reviews nearly 6,000 wines with regional maps. It has been awarded the Silver Award in the category titled Vittoria Coffee Best Food andor Beverage CD Rom or Internet Website. Oz Clarke’s Wine Atlas, was published in October 1995 by Little, Brown and this book represents a unique approach to the world of wine, capturing the beauty of the world’s great vineyard areas in spectacularly hand-painted panoramic maps and full-colour photographs. This book won the Julia Child Cookbook Award in The Wine, Beer and Spirits Category. Published in autumn 1997 were Oz Clarke’s Wine Companions to Bordeaux, Tuscany, Burgundy and California and also Oz Clarke’s Wine Guide 1998. In the first week the Guide went straight to Number One in the Sunday Times Bestseller Chart. Also in 1997 Little, Brown introduced Oz Clarke’s Pocket Wine Book to the trade for the first time. Grapes and Wines, which Oz co-wrote with Margaret Rand, was published in 2001 by Little Brown and it won the Lanson Wine Book of the Year 2002. Oz Clarke’s Wine Guide 2002 on CD-ROM, published by WebstersFocus, was awarded the Lanson Annual Wine Guide of the Year 2002.
Oz has been given the Special Millennium Award by Le Prix du Champagne Lanson for his outstanding contribution to wine education and communication during
the last ten years. Mr Georges Alnot, Managing Director of Champagne Lanson said ‘we are proud to present this Award to Oz Clarke, for his enthusiasm, passion and energy in his field’.
Oz is a presenter of BBC TV’s Food and Drink programme where his remarkable tasting ability has won him great notoriety. He was a regular presenter of the BBC1 daytime makeover show Style Challenge, and according to one TV critic ‘it’s only when the presenter rota turns to Oz Clarke that the programme really bursts into life. Oz is a cheery character who can make any morning feel fine.’ In 1996 Oz filmed his own series An Australian Odyssey, in which he travelled around the outback and the cities retracing the remarkable steps of the Australian wine pioneers. This series was broadcast in Australia and on The Travel Channel in the UK. He has presented a number of wine items for the BBC1 consumer show The Really Useful Show and travel items for BBC Holiday and Summer Holiday programmes. He joined two of his great passions – Ireland and railway lines – in a programme for BBC Northern Ireland called Off the Beaten Track and he also presented a series made by BBC Scotland, The Auld Alliance about the historic links between Scotland and Bordeaux. He has appeared on Songs of Praise singing the songs of Moody and Sankey. He has been the featured artist on Desert Island Discs presented by Sue Lawley. He has guested on The Generation Game, Friends Like These, Call My Bluff, Good Morning, Eat Your Words, Masterchef, Pebble Mill at One, Celebrity Ready Steady Cook, The Travel show, Children in Need Specials, It’s Only TV But I Like It and Kavanagh QC and many more programmes and each year he makes personal appearances at the BBC Good Food Show.
As well as his work as a broadcaster Oz hosts many wine tastings throughout the year and produces his annual Wine Guide. He has recently updated Oz Clarke’s Wine Atlas for publication in late 2003 that won the 2003 World Food Media Award for Best Drink Book. Oz’s Pocket Wine Guide 2004 won the Lanson Wine Guide of the Year 2004.
Oz has just completed a stint in the depths of France filming a Oz and James’s Big Wine Adventure a primetime series for BBC 2 along with his co-host James May of Top Gear fame. The show is due to air on 22nd November 2006 on BBC2.
Oz Clarke lives in West London, where, when not writing about wine, he likes to avoid drinking altogether (except for the occasional pint of Fuller’s ESB), playing any sport he can lay his hands on and dreaming wistfully of lying on a palm-fringed sandy beach somewhere near to the Equator.