Oz Clarke

Early life

Clarke’s parents were a chest physician and a nursing sister. He is of Irish descent and was raised Roman Catholic. He was brought up near Canterbury with a brother and a sister. Clarke became a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral and subsequently won a choral scholarship to The King's School, Canterbury. He later attended Pembroke College, Oxford where he studied theology and psychology and became Common Room President. He played University hockey, was University punting champion, sang with Schola Cantorum, and acted with the dramatic society and the Oxford Revue at the Edinburgh Festival. He also captained the wine-tasting team.

He claims to have been given his chosen name, Oz, "in the school showers" when he was 13, because he played cricket like an Australian cricketer. The Australian cricket team was touring the UK at the same time. Prior to this, he answered to the name Robbie, or Robin formally. He was also in James and Ozs Drink to Britain.

Having grown up in Kent, Clarke played cricket for Babes of Kent schoolboys and supports Gillingham. He can be seen wearing a Gillingham scarf in Oz and Hugh Drink to Christmas, broadcast prior to Christmas 2009 and James May's Man Lab Christmas Special, broadcast prior to Christmas 2011, both on BBC Two.

It was mentioned on Oz and James Drink to Britain that Oz has Irish roots including that his mother was born in Graiguenamanagh.

He is a cousin of Irish journalist and broadcaster Olivia O'Leary.

Acting career

After Oxford, Clarke started a career as a full-time actor and singer. His first job was at Northampton, followed by Sheffield, Manchester and Leicester. He then worked for the Royal Shakespeare Company, The National Theatre, The Old Vic and Chichester. In the West End, he appeared with Michael Crawford in Billy at Drury Lane, sang Sweeney Todd in Sweeney Todd, played all the men in the Mitford Girls and General Peron in Evita. It was during this acting period that he was drafted in to the newly formed English Wine Tasting Team, who won competitions against France, Germany, and the USA, among others. This proved crucial for his career development.

When a wine expert dropped out of the new BBC show Food and Drink, the acclaimed television producer Peter Bazalgette allegedly shouted, 'Get me the actor who knows about wine'. They did, and Clarke's career began to shift away from theatre towards wine, but not out of the entertainment business. He and Jilly Goolden became the voices and faces of wine in Britain for a generation.

He played one of the first criminals apprehended by Superman in the 1978 film Superman, a terrorist in Superman II, a Special Branch man in Who Dares Wins, and Balthasar in Stuart Burge's 1984 film of Much Ado About Nothing. He sang the baritone role – and Sam Gamgee's song – in the BBC adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, and recorded Stephen Oliver's A Man of Feeling for Granada TV.

On December 2011, Clarke was one of the team in the BBC Two programme James May's Man Lab Christmas Special.

Wine career

While performing in Sheila Hancock's Dandy Dick, he joined the Sunday Express as their first wine writer. He then became wine correspondent of The Daily Telegraph.

In 1982, Clarke won the last World Wine Tasting Championship, making him reigning champion as the event has not yet been repeated.

Clarke has written several award-winning books, and is generally regarded as the New World champion who led Britain's wine revolution in the 1990s and 2000s, but he is also a passionate supporter of the Old World classics, in particular Bordeaux wine. Clarke has appeared on numerous radio and TV shows, including Food and Drink, the long-running BBC Food show, for which he became well known in the UK for his stint as the wine expert alongside Jilly Goolden, and A Question of Taste and The Wine Programme for BBC Radio 4. He made three successful BBC TV series with James May: Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure in France and California, and Oz and James Drink to Britain. The comedian Hugh Dennis was later brought into this concept as Oz and Hugh Drink to Christmas was broadcast in 2009, and the later series, Oz and Hugh Raise the Bar, was broadcast over the Christmas period in 2010.

Clarke stated in Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure that he was banned from the Champagne region of France in the 1990s for having made statements suggesting that champagne was deteriorating in value while rising in price.

In November 2008 a survey by the wine industry consultancy firm Wine Intelligence was made public, having polled the views of more than 1,500 regular UK wine drinkers. Results show that Clarke was the most recognised wine critic in the UK. In 2009 he won the International Wine Challenge Personality of the Year award jointly with James May, in the same week as winning the Louis Roederer International Book of the Year for his book Bordeaux. In 2010 he and James May won the TRIC Award for 'best documentary' (for Oz and James Drink to Britain). He was also awarded an Officier de l'Ordre du Mérite Agricole by the French Government.

Oz Clarke's written output is now published by Pavilion Books, an imprint of Anova Books. In December 2010, he launched his very first app for use on Apple's iPhone and iPad, through Anova Digital: Oz Clarke's Best Wines 2011 and Oz Clarke's Xmas Wines.

Awards