At home or at work, finding the perfect wine to match a dish is a fine art – in his latest book Wine & Recipes, wine consultant Raul Diaz uses his Chilean heritage and experience of visiting over 100 countries to inform a colourful and insightful look at wine-and-food matching. Apart from featuring some dazzling recipes the book attempts to lead you into making some smart pairing choices, advice which can be used as a basis for on-site training.
There is just over a week left to get entries in for the 2021 London Spirits Competition – the only event of its kind that judges drinks on their quality, their value for money and what they look like in their packaging and design. To help set the scene we talk to one the judges, Cristiana Pirinu, bartender at The Donovan Bar about why she takes part and thinks it is a competition to be taken seriously.
As we close in on the final entry date for the 2021 London Wine Competition (February 22) we talk to more of the top line judges that will be deciding which wines pick up what medals and trophies in this year’s event. Only individuals with direct buying and senior levels of responsibility are invited to take part in the judging process as they have the experience of being able to pick out the extraordinary from the ordinary.
2020 will go down as the year when diversity and inclusion were not just a tick box on a HR employment form, but became arguably one of the most important issues the whole drinks and hospitality sectors could get behind. Driven by the momentum that has come out of the Black Lives Matter movement is Wine Unify, a new body set up in 2020 to provide a platform of support, education and mentoring for the black and BAME communities. Here Alicia Towns Franken, who heads up its mentorship programme, explains how she hopes her experiences as a leading sommelier in the US restaurant scene can help others and how she will be sharing that story at Wine Future 2021 later this month.
If a drinks competition is doing its job, it should be attracting the most exciting new launches as well as attracting the best established brands in that sector to judge. It’s why so many top bartenders and mixologists are keen to take part in the judging of the London Spirits Competition as it allows them to spot and keep on top of cocktail and drinking trends before they hit the market. Three of the best share their insights here…
Covid-19 continues to wreak havoc across the hospitality sector and even with government support and the furlough scheme thousands of businesses are at risk of closing down, which in turn means their employees are at risk of losing their jobs, if they have not already. The Hospitality Gig is a new platform that has been set up by three highly experienced hospitality professionals to offer a new flexible way for on-trade companies to find the most suitable talent, to work on both short and longer term projects that will be needed to help the industry get back on its feet throughout 2021. Co-founder Rachel Moosa explains how it is going to work.
As we finally say goodbye to 2020 there is still time to share the experiences and memories of a key member of the wine trade as we ask Mattia Scarpazza, head sommelier at Petersham Nurseries, what were his personal takeaways from such a turbulent year. It might have meant spending a lot more time away from the restaurant floor, but he has kept himself busy and creative launching his own wine podcast to great acclaim. Over to you Mattia…
Whilst 2020 will go down as the year, the world over, when we all went through the same emotions of lockdown and coming to terms of living in a global pandemic. But the impact of Covid-19 on ourselves as individuals has been very different. Here Victoria Sharples, wine buyer at St John Restaurant in London, shares what it has been like to have been on furlough for most of 2020, and how it is actually been a hugely rewarding time to stop and reflect and make the most of our unique circumstances.
As we emerge from our Christmas bubbles and our thoughts start to turn to New Year, we turn to Shane McHugh, wine buyer and head sommelier for the Goodman group of steak restaurants to share his thoughts on 2020, just what impact Covid-19 has had on him personally and the restaurant group, and what he is doing over the festive period to hopefully take some time to relax, reflect and look forward to the year ahead.
The Ritz, The Stafford, The Connaught Bar, Gleneagles, Roka, 45 Park Lane and Dukes Hotel are just some of the prestigious names represented on the judging panel for the 2021 London Spirits Competition. For any distiller, brand owner, producer or importer the competition is an opportunity to have your products assessed by the top premium on-trade spirits buyers in the country. Here’s how you can enter this year’s competition and who is doing the judging.
The Bibendum training team has seen demand for training fall by about a third this year due to the pandemic, but that hasn’t stood in its way of innovating harder than ever to bring training to those who still want it. After all, when consumers can go out for dinner and a glass of wine they are still expecting a high-quality experience and that is best delivered by well-trained, confident staff. Jessica Broadbent talks to Bibendum’s head of customer training, Julia Bailey, about taking its training online.
“We need to diversify. One voice, one perspective cannot understand and guide the complex myriad of new faces and backgrounds that are making their way into the wine trade. There are issues and experiences that I am going to face that a man in his 50s simply cannot understand. If we don’t act upon this, we run the risk of continuing the monoculture vacuum that characterises the wine trade.” This is how Amber Gardner, in this detailed and personal account, sets out the opportunities, but also the challenges involved in offering much needed mentoring in the drinks and hospitality sectors.
We continue our Onwards & Upwards series featuring key figures in the drinks and hospitality sectors that are now looking for new roles and opportunities in the industry with the highly experienced national account manager Matt Lindsley, who has worked at a number of major importers, most recently at Castelnau Wine Agencies, who looks back on his career, his experiences and what he hopes he can offer in his next role.
When Roger and Sue Jones announced they were to close their much loved and celebrated restaurant, The Harrow at Little Bedwyn, there was a rush to book a table before their final service in March. In the end the outbreak of Covid-19 meant they had to close their doors before their final date. Rather than enjoy an early retirement, the couple have never been busier launching a series of initiatives to first cook and feed hundreds of vulnerable people in their local community, before switching to running a gourmet takeaway service which it is now using to raise money for a series of charities in December. For all their efforts during Covid-19 The Buyer salutes Roger and Sue and we’re sure you will join us in Raising A Glass to them.
Fiona McLaughlin has enjoyed a wide and impressive career that has seen her rise through the ranks at Majestic before switching over to the on-trade to head up sales in the south west for Enotria&Coe. She is now looking for her next role in the wine industry and hopes to be able to find the right company to share her experience, and passion for working with and developing teams.
As pubs, bars and restaurants across England prepare to close until at least December 2 here’s an uplifting story of how one north London restaurant, Top Cuvee, has already shown in the first national lockdown how it was able to set up an ecommerce model from scratch and even open up a separate Shop Cuvee retail store. It means its owners, Max Venning and Brodie Meah, are as well placed as they can be going into another four weeks of uncertainty. Harry Crowther paid them a visit and tells their story.
Even if you know someone well in the trade it’s only if they happened to come for an interview that you get to find out so much about their career, their past experiences and what they could potentially bring to your business. Which is what the Onwards & Upwards series is all about. Giving people a platform to share what they have done in their career. This week the vastly experienced sommelier and wine buyer Guillem Kerambrun talks about his life in hospitality working in some of the best restaurants in the world, experiences he now wants to share through his new consultancy business.
Training and consultancy support are so often some of the first things to go when businesses are forced to make cut backs in difficult times. But here in our latest Onwards & Upwards article to give a voice to those in the trade looking for new opportunities, Harry Crowther makes the case for why now training has never been more important in hospitality to help operators get even more out of the assets – their wines and spirits – through the skills and quality of their staff.
Like so many of his peers in the wine trade Toby Sigouin first started out on a shop floor working at his local Fuller’s making ends meet as a student. But whilst he first discovered a passion for wine, re-stocking shelves and hosting in-store tastings in a subsequent role as a store manager for Oddbins he also realised if he was to have a serious career in wine he needed to widen his experience. So he was brave enough to step outside the sector and learn the skills you need to succeed in sales by joining Landrover where he was soon one of their top 10 best sales specialists in the country. On returning to wine he joined Forth Wines and following the acquisition by Inverarity Morton he progressed to the senior wine buying role where he has enjoyed considerable success. He has, though, due to Covid-19 now been made redundant and is looking for a new start. Here he shares his experiences and story in wine and how he hopes he can now help others with his new wine consultancy business whilst he also looks for a new senior buying role.
Last week The Buyer launched its ‘Onwards & Upwards’ initiative to provide a platform for anyone in the drinks, retail and hospitality sectors who has lost their job, or is looking for a new start due to the impact of Covid-19. Today we introduce a new series that features a round up mini profiles from individuals who are keen to tell their story, share their experiences and explain what their next dream job would be.
