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Written in the Stars: Bordeaux 1865-2020

BY NEAL MARTIN |

The Yellow Advertiser

When I was a young scallywag, my brother and I appeared in the “Yellow Advertiser”, a free local newspaper. We featured in a weekly column where rosy-cheeked kids gushed about their hobby to a readership more interested in listings for second-hand Ford Capris or Southend United’s latest humiliation on the pitch. Our obsession with Lego had spawned a town that had ridden roughshod over planning permission and sprawled across my bedroom, and it was time to tell the world. Looking back, it’s a miracle that I never became a town planner.

It’s a couple of hours before the last in a series of dinners promoting my book: The Complete Bordeaux Vintage Guide 1870-2020 (just in case you need reminding.) I’m seeking inspiration for tonight’s homecoming speech, something I can riff on, so I ask mum if she can nip upstairs to fetch a homemade folder where she keeps invitations, orders of service and newspaper cuttings that each mark her sons’ significant milestones or claims to fame. Leafing through this veritable time capsule, I find the original page cut from the Yellow Advertiser dated September 1982. I study the grainy photograph and grin as an 11-year-old me looks back, attired in a trendy Adidas t-shirt that compensates for a haircut that no loving parent should inflict upon their child. Reading the anodyne interview in the same house forty-one years later, when asked about my intentions for adult life, I replied that I would like to become an author. I guess that has come to pass, even if not the métier nobody could have predicted. Then, my eye is drawn to another article on the same page. I gasp…

First book signing event in early April.

First book signing event in early April.

The Promotional Campaign Begins

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In order to promote my Complete Vintage Guide book, together with notable wine merchants and friends, I organized a series of dinners festooned with mature claret. What a privilege. I’ve always thought my career was a combination of happenstance and hard graft. But maybe it was written in the stars?

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