The grandson of the British diplomat, Irish landowner and Catholic re-convert Sir John Francis Charles, 7th Count de Salis-Soglio, his earliest years were spent at 10 Priory Walk, Kensington, and 26 Roedean Crescent, Roehampton Gate, SW15.

Later he was a tenant and then door-tenant, at 1 Brick Court, Middle Temple, EC4, and from 1972 lived at 12 First Street, SW3 and then from 1975 in two houses knocked together at 28 Upper Cheyne Row, Chelsea, SW3.

Alongside learning and practicing the law he served in the Cambridge University Officer Training Corps (CUOTC), the HAC (within the Territorial and Army Volunteer Reserve), then in 1972, after meeting its then Colonel, Viscount Monckton, one of whose sisters-in-law happened to be married to one of John's first cousins, transferred to the 9th/12th Royal Lancers (Prince of Wales's).

[14] By 2010 Conti de Salis-Soglio Wines Verona had taken shape, partly inspired by his courageous and visionary Valtelline cousin Conte Cesare Sertoli Salis of Tirano and Milan (1952-2005) and his Canua Sforzato, akin to Valpolicella's Amarone.

He then married (Vers l’Eglise, Vaud 1986) Marie-Claude (born in 1956 in Geneva, Switzerland), third daughter of Swiss Army Colonel René-Henri Wüst and Marie-Thérèse Bussard.