Jilly Goolden

At a Glance Wine broadcasting changed shape on *Food & Drink*, where Jilly Goolden made the subject feel less guarded and more conversational. English by nationality and born in Surrey, she worked with a register that stayed accessible without flattening the material, and authoritative without turning austere. That balance is the main fact of her appeal: wine could be discussed in public without the usual pressure, and Goolden gave it a television language that felt open to non-specialists without losing the trust of specialists.

In Their Words “I do think the programme made a difference to how people see wine, and I am incredibly proud of that.” The line points to the part a presenter can play in changing the tone around a category. With Goolden, that meant moving wine away from the hush of the tasting room and into a more ordinary public setting, where knowledge did not have to arrive as gatekeeping. *Food & Drink* became the vehicle for that shift, and Goolden’s work on it is remembered for making wine feel less forbidding and more available to curiosity.