Spending time chatting with Susy Atkins felt a bit like looking through a window into a world where wine, travel and storytelling all naturally come together. With a long-standing career as a wine writer and broadcaster, and a real presence in the South West food and drink scene, she brings a huge amount of experience — but also a genuine enthusiasm that hasn’t dulled over time.
What I particularly enjoyed was just how open and easy the conversation felt. We moved from early ambitions of writing for glossy magazines through to life as a freelancer, food festivals, and even climbing Dartmoor tors with a bottle of wine in hand. It’s clear that while her career has evolved over the years, that original love of writing, and of discovering great food and drink, is still very much at the heart of everything she does.
What does your Monday morning routine look like?
In my freelance world, it can be completely different from one week to the next. I might wake up in a wine region somewhere on a press trip – I’ve been to places like New Zealand and Austria recently – or I might just be at home hitting my desk hard with freelance work. Equally, if I’ve spent a whole weekend at a food festival giving talks, then Monday might actually be my day off. During festival season, which is really from April through to October, I quite often treat Mondays as a rest day just to recover and give my voice a break.
What did you want to be when you were young?
I always wanted to write for magazines. I absolutely loved glossy magazines as a child – I even made my own at home, and again at school with friends. I wrote for my university magazine when I was at Cambridge, and I just knew that was what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to be a news journalist; I was drawn to the columns, the features, to storytelling, to those beautifully produced magazine pieces. Food came into it in my late teens and early twenties, and wine followed a little later, but writing was always the constant.
What was your first full-time job?
My first full-time job was at Haymarket Publishing, where they took on a group of graduates each year and trained us across a wide range of magazines. I worked on several different titles as a trainee – everything from trade publications to more specialist magazines – which gave me a really broad grounding in journalism. At the same time, I was already starting to freelance, writing small reviews of bars, cafés and restaurants in London for Time Out. It was during that period that everything began to come together, and I realised I wanted to focus on food and drink writing. I eventually moved onto Wine Magazine within Haymarket, which was the area I was most interested in, and that’s really where my career started to take shape.
What job has been your favourite and what made it so special?
I honestly think every time I’ve done radio, I’ve loved it. I did quite a lot of TV, but I’ve always been very nervous with television — even if it didn’t necessarily come across that way. Live TV especially can be quite stressful. Radio, though, feels completely different. It gives you just the right amount of adrenaline, but you don’t have to worry about how you look or what’s happening visually around you. You can just focus on talking about something you enjoy. I used to do programmes like Woman’s Hour and You and Yours, and I really loved that kind of work. It’s somewhere I’ve always felt very comfortable and would happily do more of.
What has been the best moment in your career?
There isn’t just one moment, but I have to say that being out in vineyards with winemakers is as good as it gets. Travelling for work can be quite gruelling — you might be visiting several wineries in a day, often after a long journey — but those moments where you’re sitting in a vineyard with a winemaker, tasting their wines and hearing their story, are really special. Being able to see exactly where the grapes are grown and to experience that connection between place, person and product is fantastic. Those are the moments that really stay with you.
What’s the most unexpected lesson you’ve learned from your career so far?
When I moved from London to the South West in 1998, I genuinely thought my career might stall. I assumed I’d lose work and might have to rethink what I was doing, so we made quite cautious decisions at the time. But it coincided with the point when working remotely was just starting to become possible. In the early days, I was literally posting floppy disks to editors, and then email came in, and suddenly it didn’t matter where I lived at all. My editors weren’t remotely interested in where I was — as long as I could file my copy, that was all that mattered.
Looking back now, there have really been two phases to that shift. The first was that move around the late ’90s when email made remote working viable, and then the second was much later with things like Zoom and Teams, which have made communication even easier. As much as COVID was obviously a very difficult time, it did open up even more ways of working remotely. It’s something I hadn’t expected at all when I left London — I thought I might be narrowing my opportunities, but actually the opposite happened. It really taught me not to underestimate how flexible working can be, and how much location matters less than you think.
What’s the best piece of advice you ever received?
The best advice I’ve been given in my work was from wise older colleagues to challenge ALL the preconceptions and ‘rules’ in wine and food – for a start, if you like a particular wine but many others don’t, or it isn’t posh or fashionable, you are not wrong! It works for you. If you prefer a white wine with your steak, then stick with it. I only ever suggest guidelines in choosing wines, not hard and fast rules.
The other piece of advice is rather practical, but it’s crucial if you’re freelance: be very organised about money. Get your invoices in quickly, chase what you’re owed, and don’t be casual about it. If you’re a sole trader, that’s your livelihood, and it needs to be a priority. My husband and I have both been freelance for many years, so we’ve had to be really disciplined about that.
What inspires you?
Flavour inspires me, without question, particularly when I’m tasting something new or unexpected. I was judging earlier this year for the Food Drink Devon Awards, and while not everything stands out, when you do come across something exceptional, it’s a real moment.
Especially when that’s tied to a small producer who’s worked incredibly hard to create something of real quality, it’s just fascinating. In my voluntary role as a board director of Food Drink Devon, I also have the privilege of supporting food, drink and hospitality businesses across the county, and I find that hugely inspiring. There’s so much talent, creativity and dedication in the region, and meeting the people behind these businesses constantly reminds me how much passion and hard work go into what they do. That combination of flavour and story is what keeps things fresh and interesting for me.
What would you do if you weren’t in the food, drink and hospitality industry?
If I’d been braver, I think I might have tried to write fiction. It takes courage to do that, and I’m not sure I’ve quite had that courage yet. I’d probably write something humorous – I don’t think there’s enough humorous fiction written by women – perhaps with a bit of mystery in it. Maybe it’s something I’ll come back to later in life.
What is your most memorable foody childhood memory?
My parents were very into growing their own fruit and vegetables, so our garden was full of fruit bushes. I remember these big netted cages to keep the birds out, and going inside them to pick strawberries and raspberries straight from the plant. That taste – warm, fresh, straight off the vine – is something you never forget.
What is your favourite cuisine?
If I had to choose one, it would be Spanish. I love the variety – tapas, paella, seafood, meats, vegetables – and it’s so wonderfully wine-friendly. You can pair everything beautifully, whether it’s a fresh albariño with fish or a red Rioja with lamb. It’s just a very complete, satisfying cuisine. That said, I’d love to explore more of Southeast Asian cooking – Korean, Vietnamese, Malaysian – I enjoy those cuisines when I eat them, but I’d like to understand them more.
What is your favourite food or drink product on the market right now and why?
I’d have to say the dairy products from Devon — and the wider South West — are just exceptional. It’s something this region does incredibly well, and I think we’re very lucky to have access to that quality on our doorstep. Things like clotted cream, crème fraîche, ice cream and cheese are all produced to such a high standard. I’ll often buy something like Riverford’s crème fraîche, which I think is absolutely fabulous, and I’ve always got a lot of time for producers like Quicke’s cheeses, Sharpham, and of course proper West Country clotted cream from Rodda’s. Even ice cream from producers like Granny Gothards is brilliant. I don’t eat a huge amount of dairy, but when I do, I try to make it something local and really good, because the quality here is just so consistently high. It’s one of those areas where the South West really shines.
What is the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?
Sea urchin! I’ve had it twice, and I didn’t enjoy it either time. You scoop out the inside and it’s just not pleasant for me at all – very much a texture thing. I’ve tried all sorts of other unusual things over the years – crocodile, kangaroo, even peacock – and actually enjoyed some of those, but sea urchin is definitely not for me.
What’s your favourite way to unwind and de-stress?
Apart from the obvious glass of wine, I spend a lot of time in the garden. We’ve got quite a large space, so there’s always something to do – weeding, trimming, planting. It’s a great way to switch off after a day at the desk.
In the warmer months, I also love swimming in the local outdoor pools, and if it’s a really lovely evening, we’ll even take a bottle of wine and climb up one of the tors near us and just sit there and enjoy it. Living on the edge of Dartmoor, you really can’t beat that.
What would you like to be doing in five years’ time?
I’d like to be travelling more to places I haven’t yet explored. I’ve been incredibly lucky to visit so many wine regions, but that does mean there are big parts of the world I’ve never seen. I’d love to spend time in Southeast Asia, Patagonia, Iceland – really diverse places. I feel quite driven to do that now while I’ve got the energy for it.
What is happening in your life right now that you would like a shout out about?
Throughout the year I’ve been involved in some wonderful events across the South West, each with its own character and audience. Dorset Seafood Festival was a real highlight this summer, and I also always look forward to hosting talks at Toby’s Garden Festival at Powderham Castle each spring. More recently, it was a pleasure to host a wine tasting at Ashburton Food Festival in September. It’s a privilege to be involved with so many brilliant celebrations of food, drink and the people behind them.
Another event that remains a firm fixture in my diary is Dartmouth Food Festival, which runs this year from Friday 23rd to Sunday 25th October. I’ve been involved for more than ten years as an ambassador, hosting wine seminars and tastings across the weekend. It’s a fantastic three-day celebration of food and drink, featuring chef demonstrations, talks, tastings, masterclasses and an incredible showcase of local producers. What I love most about all of these festivals is the opportunity to meet passionate producers, share great food and wine, and connect with people who care deeply about the South West’s food and drink community.
Connect with Susy through her website www.susyatkins.co.uk or through her Instagram page.
