ABOUT WINEWEEKENDS

Wineweekends is the brainchild of Jon Hurley who left London and the wine trade with his wife Heather and son Russell in 1973, for Cooley Lodge, a small stone cottage in Herefordshire after reading a book on self sufficiency. A few months of eating nettles and looking out at rain sodden cows, miles of green grass and bent trees he invented Wineweekends and registered the name at Company House.

After a few weekends a Rolls Royce nosed its way up the Hurley's narrow lane. "Is this where the weekends are held?" a plump Welsh millionaire asked a little doubtfully. "Come in" Jon said as cool as you like, "take a pew by the fire while I get my corkscrew out." The man left on Sunday morning after breakfast not knowing his Asti from his Alba.

The press soon got wind of this unusual cottage industry. Remember this was when Oz was in short pants and Jilly wore a teeth brace and pigtails. Every weekend a hack or two came down to dodge the cowpats, inhale fresh air, walk over fields, pick mushrooms and drink themselves silly. On one of those early occasions Heather hid the Port decanter from a particularly thirsty young hackette whom she decided had had quite enough. Heather didn't realise drinking is part of being a journalist. Anyway it didn't take the journo long to find the hiding place and when Heather appeared with the coffee there she was, as brazen as you like with a brimming glass in front of her. "For God's sake let her," Jon said, "it might lubricate her pen as well".

It did and soon news of this odd little shoestring business spread. Soon bookings were flooding in from all over the country, and even from abroad. Harassed housewives, friendless estate agents, alcoholic doctors, pilloried accountants, impoverished teachers, right wing brigadiers, burly stone masons and gay car mechanics came in droves.

And at least one well known wine writer cut his vinous teeth around the log fire desperate to wean himself off Babycham. Novices gained confidence and wine snobs felt sufficiently unthreatened to tilt their glasses to the fire, loosen their ties and exclaim, "Hey, look at those legs".

The Hurley’s didn’t have a freezer, or a microwave, and never will. Instead they toiled in the garden, growing all their own veges. Organically too, long before that became an obligatory, if somewhat diluted, term in supermarkets. One of Jon’s earlier memories was trying to find his parsnips after a snowstorm! Another was going into the dining room one icy morning after several hours cleaning and polishing to see water cascading onto the carefully laid table!

In those days Jon bought his wines from a promiscuous number of small merchants, or a small number of promiscuous wine merchants. Most alas, are now in prison or have passed to the great off license in the sky. The survivors still supply him with the multi choice and quality he requires. Hundreds of different wines are tasted every year at Jon Hurley's Wineweekends.

Such was the popularity of the Wineweekends the Hurleys were able to move into Upper Orchard, an eccentric 17th century former pub in the village of Hoarwithy, still in Herefordshire where the frivolity continued.

Jon Hurley

Jon Hurley has worked in all aspects of the wine trade for many years. He has often written for articles on wine for the Sunday Times, Sunday Observer and trade magazines and has published several books.

His books, entitled 'The Sporting Wife's Wine Companion' and the 'Wine Label Collector', were published in 1985 and 1990.

His latest book, "A Matter of Taste", was published in December 2005 and is available on line at www.tempus-publishing.com.

A Matter of Taste

From the Sack of Shakespearean England to the supermarket Chardonnay of the twenty-first century, wine tastes in this country have changed dramatically. This book takes an irreverent (yet-impeccably-researched) look the development of our national tastes. The eclectic scope of the book includes a detailed discussion of the wine list at the coronation of George VI, the impact of French Chateau legislation in 1855 upon the obsessive Victorian claret fiends of the day, the explosion of Hock as the typical plonk of the 1970s and the many frauds, marketing ploys and outrages perpetrated on the traditionally naive British market over the years. Lavishly illustrated with paintings, photographs, labels and woodcuts, this light-hearted journey through the cultural history of wine wears its learning lightly and is a wonderful book for anyone who enjoys a glass or two.

In July 2007 Roger Scruton reviewed the article for the New Statesman [Full article] and he said:
...Jon Hurley has persuaded me that taste in wine is as significant in the evolution of society as taste in art. The British have relished wine by way of relishing the world. And the French and Germans have shaped our temperament as much through their wine as through their spasmodic attempts to invade and annihilate us.

This was reviewed in the Decanter in January 2007.
Despite a chapter entitled ‘Wine Writers: Necessary Parasites’, Jon Hurley’s ‘A Matter of Taste’ is a relentlessly entertaining, irreverent, and probably libelous collection of mini-essays on every conceivable aspect of the social history of wine.’

Also in the Decanter of July, 2006:
'Delve around for nuggets like a Tanner’s list containing Australian Cabernet in 1893, and some beautiful picture plates.'

Chris Robertson, journalist, said in February, 2006:
"The author's enthusiasm and witty approach beguile and delight the reader while offering an education into the subject at the same time’. Also-Jon helpfully dismisses a good deal of the stuffiness surrounding wine tasting’ also- ‘ ‘A Matter of Taste’ is a book to be savoured like a good wine. It could become a hand-book for anyone wish to dazzle with their knowledge of wine and its origins’.

Also a complimentary piece in Blackwell on line in spring, 2006 which includes the lines:
‘This book takes an irreverent ( yet impeccably researched ) look at the development of our national tastes.’ and ‘ the eclectic scope of the book etc. And ‘lavishly illustrated with paintings, photographs, labels and woodcuts, this light-hearted journey though the cultural history of wine wears its learning lightly and is a wonderful book for anyone who enjoys a glass or two’.

wine-pages.com wrote:
Sub-titled 'The History of Wine Drinking in Britain', I enjoyed this book much more than I thought I would, fearing initially that it would be bone-dry in style. Instead, author Jon Hurley (who works in the wine trade but who's previous book was on the history of bare-knuckle fighting) has written a very thorough and comprehensive history book, but has peppered his text with irreverent tales of dirty goings on in the wine trade, frauds and back-firing marketing ploys, that keeps it engaging and easy to read. There are nicely done illustrations, from paintings and photographs to labels and advertising materials that bring many of the points in his timeline to life.