An Oddbins education

With the news that Oddbins has gone bankrupt, again, I thought it was the perfect time to write an appreciation of this peculiar institution that gave me my first proper job.

One of the most common questions asked of wine people is, how did you get into wine? It’s a measure of how odd it is to take an interest in wine rather than just drink it. Nobody asks footballers how they got into football or doctors how they go into medicine. Being a wine writer is a particularly strange calling.

Some in the business have that totemic b…