You don’t need to be a snob to enjoy wine, says Oz Clarke. He spoke to STEPHEN LEWIS ahead of an appearance at the York Food & Drink Festival later this month

IF you ever caught Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure on the BBC, you'll know Oz Clarke. In two TV series, he and Top Gear's James May drove round the vineyards of first France and then California, sampling wines and quite frequently getting disgracefully drunk.

Clarke was the wine buff, a man of cultivated palate and cultivated manners desperately trying, with only moderate success, to educate beer drinker May about the finer points of wine. It was often hilarious – especially when a grumpy May woke up with a hangover – but also quite educational.

"James has the attention span of a gnat," says Clarke affectionately, speaking ahead of a visit to York on September 26 and 27 for the second part of this year's Food and Drink Festival.

"He must have been a nightmare at school. I'd convince him of something one night, and then the next morning he'd forgotten all about it."

He drops his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

"The thing about James – and I wouldn't admit this in public – is that despite everything he's actually a fine fellow."

Sadly, Clarke won't be bringing the shambolic Top Gear presenter with him when he comes to York. Instead, he'll be bringing two fellow TV wine buff buddies – Olly Smith (aka Radio 2's 'Jolly Olly') and Tim Atkin, the wine expert on Saturday Kitchen.

The trio make up a group that call themselves the Three Wine Men. And they have made a name for themselves touring the country on a mission to get people to fall in love with wine, tasting a variety of wines alongside delicious food.

They've never been to York before, however: an omission they are about to put right. From 5.30pm to 8.30pm on Friday, September 26 and again from 11am to 3pm then 4pm to 7.30pm on Saturday September 27 they'll be at Dean's Park, with hundreds of wines for people to try.

"We've got a nice site right alongside York Minster," says Clarke, a former Canterbury Cathedral choirboy. Being so close to the great northern Gothic cathedral might bring out the competitive element in him, he admits. "If you see someone kicking away at the stone, it will be a Canterbury choirboy."

Joking aside, this is one wine critic who really knows his stuff - without ever being pretentious. In fact, Clarke and the two other members of the Three Wine Men have been trying for years to blow away the snobbery that can sometimes blight the wine industry.

You can get bottles of perfectly drinkable own-label reds and whites from supermarkets such as Tesco and Sainsbury, he says.

Spend a little more, and you can get some excellent wine. The £7 to £10 price bracket is the 'golden area' for wine, he says, when you start to get some really good wines.

The key is to find a grape you like – Riesling, say, or Cabernet Sauvignon – and then experiment, trying bottles of the same grape from different countries and vineyards. Grapes from less popular wine-growing areas – such as Hungary, Croatia or Romania – will be cheaper than those from better known regions such as France or Spain. And wines from cooler climates will be sharper and zestier than wines from warmer climates, which will be rounder and 'fatter'.

He goes into raptures about Chilean wines. There is plenty of sun in Chile, as in neighbouring Argentina. But the Humboldt current makes the Pacific Ocean bitingly cold, he says. Cold winds from the Pacific then blow up the river valleys where Chile's vineyards are concentrated. So the grapes are grown in cool yet sunny conditions.

As a result, Clarke says, Chilean wines are "really pinging, with crisper flavours. If you get a wine with a taste of blackcurrant from Chile, it will really taste like your mum's blackcurrant jam".

Wines made from the same grapes grown in neighbouring Argentina, which doesn't have those cold winds, will be softer and more rounded.

One wine myth Clarke is keen to debunk is that certain wines should only be drunk with certain foods. If you want to make a serious hobby of wine drinking, he says, it is true that some wines go particularly well with some foods.

"But some wine writers can be too prescriptive, saying you must have this, or don't have that," he says. "These days most wines go with most foods."

The Three Wine Men aim to demystify wine – while keeping the magic, he says.

In York, they will have "top, top wines" for people to try – available to sample for the £25 entry fee.

If you want to learn about wines you might enjoy, the best thing would be to go around making a tick on your programme beside wines you particularly like, he says.

All that, and you'll get to meet the Three Wine Men themselves.

"We'll make sure that everybody who comes gets a piece of us," he promises. "You can talk to us, glad hand us, we'll have a bit of a joke or a cuddle..."

Steady on there, Oz. You can hear James May running for cover from here...

The Three Wine Men, September 26 and 27, Dean's Park, York. Tickets £25 per session from www.seetickets.com/Tour/THREE-WINE-MEN or from the ticket hotline on 0844 858 6759.