Renting a row of vines for a year and getting the chance to meet the wine-maker would make an ideal gift for a wine-lover. So it's at this time of year that businesses such as 3D Wines, which specialises in this service, are especially busy. The managing director of 3D Wines is Alice Dumas, who says: "I love the people contact and going to France. It's a very human business to be in."

But she experienced a very different career before she became passionate about wine. Dumas studied singing at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama before establishing herself as a professional singer for five years. She says: "I grew up learning to play the piano and dancing around the living room to ballet records. I loved it more than anything else. But during the five years I was professional I realised that I wasn't going to make the very top grade and looking ahead, it was basically going to be a life of struggle. So I thought it was time for a change. Life has a brutal way of telling you that."

She says she still draws on the skills she learnt as a singer in her corporate career. "There's discipline and preparation," she says. "The fact is, if you're an artist and you have to be on stage at 2pm and you're not there, you're never hired again. The sheer discipline and professionalism that exists in the stage world is at a very high level. Also, when you're a performer, you get criticised the whole time, so you have to learn to take that and to not take it personally."

She describes herself as "lucky" to have landed her current job, but adds: "That's the whole preparation thing again. Luck comes along and you have to grab it. Only those who are organised and ready to do so seize the opportunities."