Wine for Life

About the Book

“Marry him and you’ll be sure of wine for life!” So said a friend of the author’s fiancé in 1948. Now he and his wife are in their 60^th year of marriage and are heading for their Diamond Wedding celebration. This fascinating book illustrates the joy that has enhanced their lives together through their joint appreciation of wine.

The main focus throughout is on wine itself and on life in the wine trade as seen through the eyes of one who was deeply involved in it for almost all his working life.  It covers a period of great change from just before the Second World War to the late 20^th Century.

The author has a clear flowing writing style that is easily followed. It is straightforward and often humorous with many anecdotes enlivening an already colorful subject. The illustrations help to set the time period visually and add much human interest to the narrative providing a historic record of a period in which there was a remarkable surge in the drinking of wine coupled with a keen desire to learn more about it.

About the Author

Dorrien Belson, the second of three brothers, was born in London in 1917 of an illustrious military family. His own military experience, however, was limited to joining the Territorial Army soon after leaving school and subsequently to being called up at the beginning of the Second World War in 1939.

Dorrien served with the Gloucestershire Regiment in France in 1940 and was taken prisoner near Dunkirk in May of that year. After five years in prison camps in Germany and Poland, he returned home to resume his career with Harveys of Bristol, serving as a Director of the Company for eleven of the twenty-five years he was with them. It was during this period that he acquired most of his knowledge and experience about wine. In 1963 he joined the London wine merchants Justerini & Brooks and was Chairman of that Company for the last seven of the fifteen years he was with them.

For seven years he was Chairman of the Spastics Society (now Scope) for England and Wales. He was High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire 1981/2 and during the same period was Chairman of Leander Club. Since his retirement in 1978, he has spent over thirteen years as a Lay Representative with the General Council of the Bar. He is married with three sons and a daughter.