Actress and wine lover Emma Thompson says to go without wine would be like losing part of her soul.
The Love Actually star – who goes on a Berry Bros wine course after Christmas – said, ‘I can live without jewels and lovely clothes, I can even live without tea, but if I were to never have a glass of wine again it would be like losing part of my soul.’
Thompson was speaking to Decanter.com at the launch of Ballantyne, a cashmere shop on London’s New Bond Street.
She said she wants to learn more about wine in order to understand her passion. ‘My Christmas present from my husband is a four-day wine course at Berry’s, which I’m very excited about. I’m taking my mum along as my husband doesn’t drink.’
Thompson, married to Sense and Sensibility star Greg Wise, was first introduced to wine while studying at Cambridge. ‘I took part in a blind tasting and the room was populated with old men. I was jubilant because I picked out the most expensive wine as my favourite.’
The actress admits she prefers Old World to New World wines. ‘I’m a white Burgundy girl’, she said, and revealed her favourite place to enjoy a glass of wine is the Waterside Inn in Bray.
‘They have this wonderful larger-than-life sommelier called Frédéric who always recommends lesser-known wines, which have probably been made by an oenophile iconoclast in a tiny corner of France, but that’s the beauty of wine’, she said.
Thompson has just finished filming Last Chance Harvey in London with Dustin Hoffman.
Written by Lucy Shaw
