I HAVE been in the wine trade for 40 years, working as a wine merchant, producing TV wine programmes and now educating people about wine.

My wife Carol and I have been running the Devon Wine School, in Cheriton Fitzpaine, since 2006.

Carol is a good cook and the idea of combining our talents and doing something like this was attractive.

I had joined wine merchant Berry Bros and Rudd, in 1970 and became wine director in 1977. I left in 1986 to run another wine company and then got into producing films about wine.

We started making some programmes for the BBC, including World of Wine, which ran from 1993 to 1995. Derek Cooper, from the Food Programme, wrote the scripts and voiced it.

I became a Master of Wine in 1988. Then, there were only 140 of us in the world, and now there are 275. I have always been into the education side of wine.

When you are doing wine-tasting, you really have to offer accommodation as well, so the whole business plan here always involved wine courses for people and letting them stay. I had the idea in mind for a place like this for a while but it wasn't until about 2003/04 that we started to draw up plans for the wine school. Initially we wanted to do it in France, but when that fell through we looked for somewhere in the UK. Like everyone who's been here, we like Devon, and the culture of food and wine here is terrific for this sort of thing.

Our visitors come from all over. The biggest challenge is getting them here, which can be jolly tough in a recession. Once people are here that's the easy part, because we know we can look after them properly.

It's only when people come along that a business like this grows through word of mouth. We have doubled our turnover in the past year. We were featured in the Daily Telegraph last August as one of the top 10 places in the UK for a wine course, and that has encouraged a lot of people.

The website is our most important promotional tool. Being in the Alastair Sawday guide and part of the Visit South West and Visit Britain scheme is a huge help. Our accommodation was awarded Visit Britain's five-star gold award.

As an approved programme provider for the Wine and Spirit Education Trust, we also do courses for people in the trade. Gidleigh Park and Abode send their sommeliers here and the local pubs who want to learn more about wine send their people here as well.

My advice to anyone starting a business would be to plan carefully and do the research to make sure it at least has a chance of working. Then don't expect it all to arrive in the first 10 days. Allow two or three years to work on that business plan to make it happen.

You come at wine from a different way if you look at it from a business point of view. So many people think the normal rules of business don't manifest themselves in the wine trade, but believe me they do.