I had called a meeting – I think it was to discuss innovation. We were maybe eight people, all key players in their roles, and me, the boss. The meeting was due to start at 11am, but I was finishing another important task and I did not make it until 11.15, maybe 11.20. I made my apologies and we got underway.
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Black wine professional Magnavai Janjo urges the trade to swap discomfort for progressive conversation and sustainable steps towards greater inclusivity.
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As La Rioja Alta celebrates its 130th anniversary, and with the release of its second ever Viña Arana Gran Reserva (2014) in August, Andrew Catchpole catches up with Julio Sáenz for taste and talk over his most recent trio of Gran Reserva wines.
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The WSTA’s Miles Beale talks Andrew Catchpole through life at the trade’s lobbying body during extraordinary times
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After months of lockdown and the return to a palimpsest of normality – who would have guessed six months ago that weekend supplements would run features on how to choose the most flattering face masks for summer? – it’s understandable that the so-called Oxford vaccine has been greeted with such enthusiasm. AZD1222, developed by the university’s Jenner Institute and the drug giant AstraZeneca, certainly looks promising, even if it produces mild side effects in some users.
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Andrew Catchpole speaks with CyT’s technical director about climate change, driving Chile forward and balancing innovation with commercial reality
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In my last post I reflected on the big societal trends that created the context I worked in as a wine entrepreneur over the last 30 years. I continue here with the big trends within the world of wine itself.
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In part one of Jerry Lockspieser’s latest two-part column, our ever-insightful columnist looks at how the ‘world outside wine’ has changed and the ramifications this has had over time on the business of wine.
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Aristotle would have been great on a Zoom call. And he’d have spent the last few months bickering his wine merchant for old wooden cases too.
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I was invited to write this blog following an email I sent Harper’s editor Andrew Catchpole expressing my disappointment over the magazine’s silence on race and diversity in the UK wine industry in light of the global Black Lives Matter movement following the murder of George Floyd.
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After bumping up its US expansion via a new 11,000 sq ft bar, restaurant and cafe concept in New York’s new Hudson Yards shopping mall, hospitality group D&D has had much to keep it on its toes over the past 18 months. Jo Gilbert catches up with its chairman and chief executive about fighting Covid-19 on either side of the Atlantic.
“Don’t sell the steak, sell the sizzle” is one of the great maxims of copywriting, but it leaves a bitter taste today for those of us involved in the on-trade. We’re not selling steaks, or sizzle.
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Asking for rational trade-offs, Vagabond’s Stephen Finch voices the on-trade’s concern over the economic impact of shut-down and the 2 metre distancing rule.
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Around the world, many governments have excelled in recent months, quickly imposing rigorous, e ective measures, and pu ing to one side economic and ideological concerns for the greater good. Others, by contrast, have focused on massaging the facts to suit their narrative and clinging to a preconceived agenda in the face of a gathering storm.
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London wine merchant Jeroboams is to have a new chief executive, with encumbent Hugh Sturges leaving the role at the end of June.
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Just ahead of handing over the reins as director of viniviticulture to Jaime de la Barra at the historical Maipo estate Viña Santa Rita, Eduardo Alemparte explained the allure of a benchmark Chilean region.
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Leading Chilean and Argentinian wine producer Santa Rita Estates has reshuffled its senior management team.
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As I sat down to write this piece my phone rang. It was Nick, a winemaker and one of my oldest friends. We have been close since the early 1990s when he gambled his career on joining my incipient wine business. Its subsequent success was in no small part down to him.
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Have you been on more video-conferencing calls than usual? Zoom, Teams, FaceTime, even venerable Skype – all seem to have found their moment. We can understand why now, but why not before? The marketer Rory Sutherland once suggested video conferencing never took off because it was “the poor man’s business travel”, not “the rich man’s phone call”. But lockdown life forces us to reframe our view of video conferencing. Today it’s everyone’s business travel. Today everyone sees its value.
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Designer Rowena Curlewis talks trends and packaging design in a post-pandemic world. Andrew Catchpole tunes in.
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