Cork Talk

Tom Gilbey’s family has worked in the wine and spirits trade since the mid-19th century – they had a famous gin and owned a Bordeaux château – so it was...

Dawn Davies is a Master of Wine who also specialises in spirits. Originally a top sommelier at restaurants like Zuma and The Ledbury, she moved into retailing at Selfridges and...

Growing up in Las Palmas, Carmelo Peña Santana’s dream was to have his own restaurant.  But after working as a sommelier for a year, he became a winemaker instead, travelling...

Leo Erazo has made wines on five different continents, but these days he’s exclusively associated with the Itata Valley, Chile’s most historic wine region. I caught up with him from...

Gus Zhu started out studying horticulture at university but caught the wine bug when he attended a tasting class given by one of his professors. Since then, his rise has...

Noel Young’s dad ran a pub, so you could say he was born into the booze trade. He brewed his first beer at the age of 15 and set up...

Kelli White’s love of wine was sparked by a trip to Paris as an undergraduate and a student job in a Boston retail store. After working as a sommelier in...

Chris Blandy of the Madeira Wine Company is the seventh generation of his family to live and work in the wine trade on this volcanic island. A native with a...

Callie Louw wanted to be a doctor when he was young, but the wine world should be grateful he ended up studying oenology instead. More of a farmer than a...

Konstantin Baum is a German Master of Wine with a well-honed sense of humour, increasingly famous for his You Tube videos that bring a bit of fun as well as...

Rafael Palacios was more interested in motorbikes than wine until his early twenties, despite growing up above a bodega in Rioja. He’s certainly made up for the late start, going...

Elizabeth Berger is a Tuscany-based wine and olive oil expert, who is able to draw fascinating parallels between the two worlds. Where wine has grape varieties, olive oil has cultivars,...