Director, Guest Wines
What do you have for breakfast?
My absolute favourite is toasted stilton and tomato on wholemeal sourdough with a strong black coffee.
What’s your go-to guilty pleasure?
A demi-sec Champagne or English sparkling wine offers a lovely balance of sugar and acidity, which gives a fullness and weight to the wine that is so moreish. They go really well with treacle pudding and custard too. Pure indulgence!
What would be your last drink on earth?
I love Fino sherry, but for a final drink I’d go for a top-end pinot noir from Mornington Peninsula in Australia. The aromas are incredible and just keep going and going.
What’s in your home fridge?
Lots of vegetables, salads and fruits, with a little tofu for me and some poultry and fish for my wife and son. There’s also a good few bottles of wine in there.
And what about your wine rack?
It’s looking a little depleted at the moment, but there’s some exciting bottles in there to try. There are some natural wines in there from France, along with some really interesting wines from Poland, which is very new to us and something we’re really enjoying exploring. There’s also some English sparkling to try as we head into spring.
What’s your most important piece of kitchen kit?
A corkscrew, a fridge, and something to play music on are essential.
What’s your favourite wine book?
On a geeky level, Harold McGee’s Nose Dive is a brilliant book which explores smells, flavours and where they come from. To read and enjoy, I recommend Patricia Atkinson’s The Ripening Sun, about her move to Bordeaux and making wine. It’s a fascinating journey through family life alongside winemaking.
What’s your most important piece of advice when buying wine?
Don’t be afraid to ask for help. People want to share their knowledge and help you choose something which you’ll enjoy. Wine tastings are always a good starting point as you can try a selection of wines in an evening, develop your vocabulary and begin understanding what you like and don’t like.
What would you be doing if you weren’t working in wine?
I’m a part-owner of a vintage locomotive, and that scale of engineering has always fascinated me, so something like that?
If you only had £10 to spend on food and drink, what would you buy?
I hope that would still stretch to a decent plant-based burger and an easy-going, fruity Argentinian Malbec.
Who is the greatest wine expert/writer ever?
For science and the technical side, Jamie Goode and Jancis Robinson are great for information. For entertainment, Oz Clarke rambles in such a lovely way and I can almost taste the wines myself when I’m reading his stories about them.
Guest Wines, www.guestwines.com
