BRAND NEW DIRECTIONS Raise a glass

‘I tasted every alcohol-free sparkling wine on the market’

Amanda Thomson, 48, lives in Hampshire with her husband and two children. In 2016 she founded Thomson & Scott, producing low-sugar Champagne and wine.

✢ THE IDEA

I was working as an arts broadcaster for TV and radio, which required me to work hard and play hard, often staying out late drinking Champagne and covering red-carpet events. I’ve always loved Champagne, but having grown up with a health-conscious mother, who raised me on a vegetarian diet with no processed food, I started to think about how much sugar and other things were added to my favourite drink. That led to my ‘lightbulb moment’ – asking ‘what’s in your bottle?’

So in 2010 I moved my family to Paris for three years to study for the first-ever wine diploma at Le Cordon Bleu cookery school.

✢ WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

The move to France was perceived as madness and I