Tim Clarke is a wine consultant and an authority on Wine Travel & Tourism having been one of the pioneers in this field worldwide.
Tim co-founded Arblaster & Clarke Wine Tours with his wife Lynette Arblaster in 1986. Starting with their original ‘Champagne Weekends’, A&C went on to pioneer wine tours around the world. He has led parties of wine consumers on over 250 wine tours to about 25 countries over the past 35 years.
Tim developed the initial tour concepts such as “The Champagne Weekend” and “Guests at Chateau……” where clients stayed at great Bordeaux Chateau in the company of one of the world’s leading experts on Bordeaux and enjoyed top level visits in the region.
Tim designed all of the itineraries. He created and expanded wine tourism ideas such as Wine & Opera Tours, Gourmet Tours and Wine Cruises.
The Wine Cruises were particularly interesting. The philosophy of insisting that tourism must be in scale, immersive in the destination and a personal rather than mass experience meant of course using small sailing ships and super-yachts with small groups .
Tim took great pleasure in devising, planning and leading the Vineyard Walks. These included Champagne, Burgundy, Rhone, Loire, Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Port, Switzerland and last but not least, England. (Tim is available to lead walks for Private Groups for private groups).
In 2011, Tim took time out to write a ‘Wine Tourism Strategy’ for the Republic of Georgia’s Economic Prosperity Initiative.
In 2015, Tim and Lynette sold Arblaster & Clarke Wine Tours as a profitable going concern. They have had no involvement whatsoever with the firm since and make ‘no comment’ on what has happened recently.
In autumn 2017 and again in 2018 and 2019, working with friends on the Greek island of Samos, he made a Muscat Liastos (passito) wine, harvesting and sun drying the grapes and making the wine following millennia-honoured traditions.
Starting in 2020, Tim has been involved in the creation of Little Abbey Vineyard, a Pinot Noir project in Hampshire.
Tim consults on aspects of wine tourism and wine identity. He has spoken at conferences in Spain, Portugal, Republic of Georgia and England, where he presented a paper on Wine Tourism strategy at the 9th International Cool Climate Wine Symposium in 2016.
Tim is a lover of authentic, terroir-driven wines. He was described in the Sunday Times as “one of the most entertaining and authoritative wine guides in the business” and by Wine Magazine as “the Jeremy Clarkson of Wine”. (He was never sure that this was altogether a good thing). Although Tim set up the first international long haul wine tours to the New World wine countries such as Australia, Chile, Argentina, South Africa and New Zealand, ultimately, it is the ‘Historic World’ that he finds most interesting. The Historic World is a thoroughly nebulous concept, but it is those countries where the roots of wine are the deepest and where wine played a major role in the founding of civilisation.
In addition to wine, Tim’s many interests include opera, cooking and wild food foraging. Tim is a keen historian and generally gives historical context to his comment on wine.
Tim is a member of the UK Wine Tourism Committee and ‘Head of Wine Tours’ at Kirker Holidays.
Tim and Lynette (Arblaster) advised a Historical Tours Operator last year and Tim is consulted on a fascinating wine tourism project in Greece
