Glug, this thing I'm doing

It’s almost a year since I was asked to be the commissioning editor for Glug, a new UK based wine magazine—a dream come true. Naturally I initially turned the job down, citing that I was already far too busy to take on a job I’d spent years working towards chasing, worried that I wouldn’t be able to do the job well enough on top of Corto and my commitments to Pellicle and my writing. Luckily for me, the team at Beer52 (well, Richard, mainly) were having none of that and I overcame the perfectionist urge to self-sabotage. And here we are.

It’s hard to explain what this role has meant to me over the past almost-year, but I’m going to try, because a lot of tarot draws and celestial goings on over the past couple of weeks have made it clear that I should be taking time to reflect and express gratitude.

At this stage I am just looking at the magazine whenever it arrives in the post and marvelling at the hard work everybody puts in to make it the thing that it is. I’m super proud of it. And here are some great pieces from it you can read online. Hope you enjoy.

• David Jesudason has written a three-part series on wine and racism and you can find the first two parts here and here.

• Rachel Hendry has written about Port and its connections to imperialism, colonialism and Empire.

• Rachel has written a lot for Glug, and here are some more of her pieces I’ve really enjoyed: Celebrity Wines and their purpose, a fantastical interview with Bacchus himself, why tinned fish is fashionable but canned wine is not,

• Wine educator and enthusiast Maureen Little writes about biodiversity from a personal perspective.

• Claire Leavey drinks wine made from the fruit grown, foraged and left by her mother, salvaged from the chest freezer.

• Ginger Rose Clark discusses sexism in French wine.

• Anna Richards talks to the young people who are leaving conventional careers behind and moving to vineyards to work and live.

• Ben Phillips writes about the Tour de France and cycling’s connection to grand wine estates.

• Samia Qaiyum, a Dubai-based writer, explores the stylish world of dry drinking.

• Sarah Nielsen gives us their recommendations for first date wine.

• Francesca Baker looks into the ill-considered world of calorie-conscious wine.

• Zanny Merullo Steffgen walks the Camino, bottle in hand.

• Sommelier Toussaint Stackhouse swaps Instagram for print to share his experiences of classical wine education and natural evangelism.

• Matthew Curtis talks about the individual joys of beer and wine.

• Jemma Beedie slams her wine list shut and orders with gusto.

I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed the job of commissioning and editing them—and please click around on the site to find even more pieces I couldn’t fit in this non-exhaustive list. That these writers, illustrators, designers, and so many others, have chosen to give their time and effort to contribute to Glug makes my little heart glow.