Born in Spain, to greatly loved British parents whose work then took them to Paris, Clare spent the first seven years of her life in France thereby sealing her fate to love the country as if it were her own. She went to school in the UK but lived for the holidays and the flights ‘home’ to more foreign destinations including Mexico, Belgium and Poland.

Clare began her wine life in London with John Armit Wines in 1995 after a degree in French and Spanish at Cambridge University. She joined Direct Wines Ltd in 2000, as a buyer responsible for the Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, and South African portfolios. Wanting to give her two young sons the same privilege she had been gifted as a child, that of living abroad, Clare moved to Bordeaux in 2006. She established Direct Wines’ international wholesale division and became the Director of the group’s winemaking facility in Castillon, Le Chai au Quai. She travelled extensively in North America, Europe and Asia in a sales capacity promoting the company’s exclusive range of wines to the international wine trade.

Clare became a Master of Wine student in 2012 and it was during a study trip to the Napa Valley that she called her husband from the side of the Silverado Trail and said she wished they could live in this wine land paradise. Be careful what you wish for as in 2014, Clare moved to California to work as the Director of Wine Development for Lionstone International. She is based just outside Napa and currently sources the US wine range for several national wine clubs, including the Wall Street Journal, Laithwaites, Virgin, NPR, TCM and National Geographic. Despite the fires, the droughts, the earthquakes, the rattle snakes and the mountain lions, Clare still thinks of California as a truly golden state and her boys have become proficient surfers.

Clare became a Master of Wine in February 2021.