Anne Burchett publishes debut novel Tasting Notes

Marketing and communications consultant Anne Burchett has published her first novel called Tasting Notes, which is set in the world of wine.

Burchett, who has spent 30 years working in the wine trade, said that while she has always wanted to be a writer, “if it hadn’t been for Covid, [Tasting Notes] would probably never have seen the light of day.”

Her novel tells the story of Chris, who at the age of 12, sees her father leave the family home in Bordeaux and return six months later, a broken man. Many years after his death, she follows him into the wine trade, and attempts to discover what happened.

Burchett told db she spent a year writing the novel during a sabbatical in which she studied for an MA in Creative Writing in 2008-2009.

“There were many, many rewrites though the years though, cutting, editing and rearranging chapters,” she says. “Tasting Notes is a light read and its appeal is quite universal. Anybody who’s ever had a useless or an abusive boss, anybody who’s known the kind of situations at work when you don’t know if you’re coming or going and you’re losing perspective of what’s right and what’s wrong, and anybody who’s ever fancied or been fancied by a colleague will relate.”

She adds: “Tasting Notes is a commercial novel, not a ‘wine book’, but it is set in the wine world and there is a lot of wine within its pages. It’s meant to entertain and the age-old love hate relationship between the French and the English is a rich seam to mine, but it deals with serious themes, primarily lying and manipulation, and how work shapes people, not always in a good way. There is also a nod to the ‘grand messieurs du vin’ I have been blessed – or maybe cursed – to work for, and a love letter to winemakers, a profession I admire unreservedly. And there is quite a lot of my late real-life father, although he never worked in wine, and friendship and what passes for love.”

Burchett has self-published her novel on Amazon, and it is available to buy for £7.99 in paperback and £2.99 for the Kindle version.

Richard Siddle of The Buyer describes Tasting Notes as being like a “grown-up Bridget Jones where she actually gets paid to drink”.

He says: “Regardless of what industry you work in this is a fantastic debut novel and in these days of lockdown a wonderful way of reliving the times when we could travel the world for work, go to countless business meetings and get caught up in the tangled lives of our colleagues and all the office politics. If you work in the wine or drinks industry then this is just a brilliant account of what life really is like. It’s also written in a style where you can visualise every sentence that Anne Burchett writes.”

Wine writer Charles Metcalfe calls it a “gripping novel” while Rosamund Barton of PR agency R&R Teamwork rates it a “fast-paced and enjoyable read”.