Community Connections – Tamsin Brown
TAMSIN DESCRIBES herself as a wine educator, and is passionate about sharing her knowledge and encouraging others to become as fascinated as she is. She loves feeling part of the community, offering some light relief in a world that can be tricky to navigate. A quick glance at her life shows how everything has led to this point.
She grew up in a wine-loving family and studied languages at university, spending time in the Cognac region of France, where she wrote a dissertation about attempts to modernise the appeal of the brandy. Fast forward through years in London working in events and corporate training, to the decision to retrain as a teacher, which brought her and her late husband to Reading, where they put down roots. Holidays were often spent touring vineyards, and her brother worked in the drinks industry, so wine was a favourite topic of conversation.
After teaching in a variety of Reading schools, in 2010 Tamsin had a son and took some time out, returning to teaching at Caversham Primary School in 2014. Close family deaths caused her to rethink her priorities, and encouraged by her brother, she decided to follow her passion and study at the Wine and Spirit Education Trust. For the first time she was studying purely for the sake of studying, loved it, and passed her exams with flying colours. While still studying she started working as a guide at a local vineyard and doing pop-up wine tastings in her own home. This has grown organically over the years, with more pop-ups and collaborations with other local organisations – if you have been to one of Fourbears Books wine and words evenings, or a walk round a local vineyard with Walk Works, you’ll have met Tamsin.
When Spill Bar was being set up, the owners asked Tamsin to design their wine list, and her newest venture, a wine club, meets there monthly. It has proved so popular that there are already two enthusiastic groups who love learning about the new wines each month.
If you would like to find out more about the wine club, contact hello@spillbar.co.uk with the header Wine Club. For information about the vineyard walks contact hello@walkworks.co.uk
How long have you lived in RG4?
I grew up in Wargrave so have known the area all my life. I came to live in Caversham when I came to train as a teacher at the university in 2006 and have lived here ever since.
Where are your favourite places to eat, drink and shop in our area?
I don’t eat out much locally, although I like the Last Crumb. I do frequent the coffee shops, especially The Collective, and think we have a great selection of independent businesses here, especially the various gift shops.
How do you think we can be eco-friendlier here?
There are some communal recycling facilities, but they are not well signposted, so I would like to see this improved, and the range of recycling increased. For example, somewhere for clothing which isn’t good enough quality to donate to charity shops.
How would you strengthen our sense of community?
I am a great believer in networking and working together between organisations and individuals, as there is power in collaboration. I would like to see events linking local venues, for example through music or food. It is important that some of these are free to encourage locals to get involved.
If you could bring anything here, such as an event, experience or a shop, what would it be?
Caversham already has a great variety of shops, experiences and events, but often people don’t know about them, so we need to think about how we can get the word out there more.
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