Speaker biographies

Ian Bailey: Ian Bailey FRSA is an owner and director of ADI Trading, which is responsible for the marketing and sales of Schott Zwiesel, Zwiesel 1872, Jenaer Glas, Fortessa and Arzberg in the United Kingdom. He is recognised for his knowledge about glass and how it works with wine, beer and spirits.

 

Pierre-Yves Bournerias: Pierre-Yves is winemaker at the Institut Oenologique de Champagne, in Champagne. He advises around 40 Champagne producers and provides services from sample analysis at laboratories, to tasting at all stages including blending tasting to buid the 'cuvees' as well as description tastings to enrich presentation brochures and websites.  Pierre-Yves works with customers from harvest right through to release of the final product to market.

Pierre-Yves manages the development of the Institut Oenologique de Champagne in the Loire Valley and in the Jura. He is in contact with the major producers in each area, placing oenological product trials with yeasts, enzymes, tannins and other products and processes. He also looks after exports across Europe, Australia and New Zealand and travels widely providing sparkling wine consultancy. 

Pierre-Yves is a regular judge for many local and international wine competitions. He lectures widely on sparkling winemaking and tasting and presents a live weekly radio show on terroir, wine and food in France.

 

Chris Brook-Carter: Chris is the publisher of just-drinks.com, the world's leading online trade magazine for the beverage industry. Launched in 1999, the magazine now commands a readership of over 90,000 industry executives every month and has an enviable reputation for being the place for wine and spirits breaking news and views. Chris has been a drinks industry journalist for over 15 years. Before helping to launch just-drinks, he was deputy editor of Wine & Spirit International and has also contributed to a number of other national and international titles.

 

John Brooks: John is an industrial designer with more than 27 years' experience spanning a wide range of industries from medical to high-tech consumer electronics. For 16 years he was a Partner at a product design consulting firm in Adelaide, South Australia. From 1999 - 2001 John was head-hunted to manage the San Francisco office of one of America's top design firms, Design Continuum.

He has always had an entrepreneurial approach to his work and in 2001 he returned to Australia and co-founded ZORK to develop the STL closure for still wine in 2005 and later the SPK closure for sparkling wine in 2009.

As the sole technical developer of ZORK closures from invention to commercialisation, John is responsible for the development of all technical aspects of the closures including invention, design, technical development, testing, manufacturing, bottling and field support.

 

Bruno Colomer Marti: Bruno was born in Sant Cugat (Barcelona) and graduated in 1988 as a Technical Agricultural Engineer at the Escuela Politecnica de Barcelona. He completed his training with the Diplome National d'Oenologie at the Universite de Bourgogne in France.

Bruno began his career in the production area in 1990 and in 1996 started working at Mont Ferrant, SA, where he was head winemaker for cavas. From 2006 until 2008 he was Technical Director at Heretat Mas Tinell, managing all still and sparkling winemaking processes of the winery in the Penedes.

Bruno has been Head Winemaker at the Codorniu cellars since 2008. During this time he has particularly learned about vineyard selection, vineyard diversity and team work. He is especiallly proud of his team's many achievements in the last three years:  their capability to vinify grapes from many different origins separately, working with such big volumes of fruit, the study about the use & prevention of Malolactic Fermentation according to wine styles, the definition of wine styles for different labels - and finally, being able to make cavas whose youth can be retained over time.

 

Pierre-Aymeric du Cray: Pierre-Aymeric (33) was born into a family of winegrowers in the Cote Chalonnaise in South Burgundy. The family passion for wine was a huge inspiration for him and after graduating from Lyon Business School with a degree in marketing and sales he soon joined Moet Hennessy where he worked in a number of different marketing positions.

In 2005 Pierre-Aymeric joined Pernod Ricard as Regional Director for Europe and Americas for their champagne brands G.H. Mumm and Perrier-Jouet. In 2008 he became Global Sales Director for Champagnes - a position he still holds today.

 

Pieter Ferreira: Growing up in Durban as a 'surfer dude', Pieter 'Bubbles' Ferreira narrowly escaped entering dentistry after completing microbiology and plant science studies at the University of Pretoria. Instead, to the delight of partygoers and presidents around the world today, he sank his teeth into a winemaking career that gives much cause for celebration with some premium-quality bubbly.

Pieter initially worked with Achim von Arnim at Cabriere in 1984, and on the soil of Champagne in 1987 and 1989, working harvests and falling in love with sparkling wine. Pieter joined Graham Beck's Robertson cellar in 1990. Surprised by the quality and potential of the base wines even in the early days at the estate, Pieter worked hard to establish a solid platform for Cap Classique before focusing on Shiraz, which he found grew exceptionally well in the warm Robertson climate and rich limestone soils. 

Today the Cellar Master at Graham Beck Wines, Pieter is responsible for managing two cellars; a recent expansion at Robertson set to to enable production and storage of over 2 million bottles of premium sparkling wine. But for Pieter, quality is not a destination, it's a continuous journey: "I'm still in search of the perfect bubble - until then, I'll keep refining."

 

Mike Florence: Australian born Mike Florence has worked in the wine industry for over 15 years, working in many different facets of the industry including events/exhibitions, sales, marketing, public relations, brand development and publishing. Mike is currently General Manager of Litmus Wines  a technically led consultancy that helps its clients initiate direct routes to market and was formerly General Manager of the world-renowned International Wine Challenge.

 

Dr Jamie Goode: Currently one of the most respected international wine writers, Jamie is the wine columnist with UK national newspaper The Sunday Express and editor of wineanorak.com. He won the 2007 Glenfiddich Wine Writer of the year award, and contributes regularly to a range of publications including World of Fine Wine, Wine Business International, Wines and Vines, Hong Kong Tatler and Decanter. His first book, Wine Science, won the Glenfiddich Award for Drinks Book in 2006. Jamie holds a pHd in plant biology and is articularly interested in the science of wine.

 

Jaume Gramona: Jaume first joined Gramona SA, Gramona Stock SL and Gramona Batlle SL as Technical Director in 1987, before becoming CEO in 1995 and subsequently Chairman of Cavas Gramona in 2010. 

Since 1985 Jaume has studied Oenology, Viticulture and Quality Control at a number of high profile universities across Europe and in 2007 was awarded Master in Flavours and Fragrances at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya.

During that time he has also lectured widely on sparkling wine at the University Rovira I Virgili, at INCAVI and at the Institute of Corporate Training, Chamber of Commerce of Madrid amongst others. He is the Professor of sparkling wines at SIVE, the Italian Society of Viticulture and Enology - and at the University of Padova. He is also Vice President of the Brotherhood of Cava de Sant Sadurni and Head of the Technical Committee of the Cava International Congress.

 

Sam Harrop MW: Sam began his career in the UK as one of Marks & Spencer's youngest 'flying winemakers'. By age 32 he had travelled to every major wine region in the world, and passed the Master of Wine on his first attempt, receiving the Tim Derouet Award for outstanding performance. Sam is a co-founder and current Director of Litmus Wines - a UK based winemaking consultancy, that works to improve wine quality as well as providing sales support for clients looking for a direct route to the market.

Sam is also active in wine education and as a wine industry commentator, he specialises in the technical aspects of wine. Sam co-authored 'Authentic Wine' with Jamie Goode. It is a new book focusing on the concept of naturalness and sustainability in the wine industry. He is also a co-chairman at the International Wine Challenge - one of the most important wine competitions in the world.

 

Nicola Jenkin: Nicola is a Senior Consultant at Best Foot Forward, an Oxford-based consultancy specialising in ecological footprinting and carbon accounting. She recently joined Best Foot Forward from the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP). Her area of specialism is in the drinks sector and its environmental impact, and she advises on corporate sustainability strategy and, through understanding impact, identifies opportunities for resource efficiency and cost savings in the FMCG supply chain.

 

Herve Jestin: Herve graduated in oenologie from Reims, Dijon, Bordeaux and Paris Universities. He was Chef de Caves at Duval Leroy from 1982 until 2006 before leaving to establish his own sparkling winemaking consultancy business, Jestin Oenologie. In 2006 he also established Champagne Jestin, a specialist producer of organic and biodynamic champagnes. Herve now works with clients across Europe.

 

Robert Joseph: Robert developed an interest in wine while growing up in his parent's hotel in Sussex, in the south of England. After living in Burgundy for five years, he launched What? Wine, which later became Wine International.  The following year, he set up the International Wine Challenge, became wine writer for the London Sunday Telegraph, and wrote his first book, The Wine Lists, now long out of print.

Since then Robert has written 27 other books, including the Ultimate Encyclopedia of Wine, the annual Robert Joseph Good Wine Guide, French Wines, Bordeaux and its Wines and the Wine Travel Guide to the World. Many of these are now available in translation in languages including Chinese, Polish, Russian and Japanese. He is now working on a study of the future of wine, and an introductory book on wine. Robert's blog is The Joseph Report.

Robert has chaired over 50 wine competitions in London, Hong Kong, Russia, Sydney, Singapore, Bangkok, Shanghai , Beijing, Tokyo, Vietnam, Poland and India. He has won numerous awards including the inaugural Jacob's Creek 'Golden Vine' at the World Food Media Awards for his efforts in increasing the appreciation of wine throughout the world. He has also been named as one of the 50 people who influence the way we drink wine in the 21st century by Decanter magazine.

 

Adam Lechmere: Adam was editor of decanter.com for 11 years before going freelance at the end of 2010. He now writes extensively for Decanter as well as other wine and lifestyle publications. He is currently working on a profile of Chateau Phelan Segur for World of Fine Wine. He is married with three daughters and lives in southeast London.

 

Bob Lindo: Bob is Managing Director of family-run Camel Valley Vineyards in Cornwall. He originally planted the estate with his wife Annie in 1989 and Camel Valley has since built an enviable reputation for the quality of its wines, with 3 International Wine Challenge trophies and 3 Bollecini Del Mondo trophies in the cabinet.  Bob's son Sam Lindo, the winemaker at Camel Valley, is also the current UK Winemaker of the Year for the third time in five years.

A former Chair of the UK Vineyards Association, Bob has won many wine and tourism awards including a Gold Award for outstanding services to Cornish tourism - an award previously won by Rick Stein and The Eden Project's Tim Smit. 

 

Paulo Lopes: Paulo graduated in forestry engineering from the Universidade Tecnica de Lisboa (Portugal). In 2005 he received an Enology and Viticulture PhD from the Faculte d'Oenologie de Bordeaux. Together with Cedric Saucier and Yves Glories, Paulo has made vital contributions in areas such as oxygen permeation of different wine closures and their impact on the chemical and sensory properties of bottled wine. 

Since 2006 he has been Research and Technical Manager at Amorim & Irmaos, S.A., responsible for the supervision, planning and completion of R&D projects plus technical support for both Amorim clients the sales and marketing teams. He also provides support for product development, application trials and education seminars. 

Paulo is currently finishing a Wine MBA at BEM Management School in Bordeaux, specialising in strategic management, marketing and brand management, wine markets, finance and supply chain management.

 

Arthur O'Connor: Arthur was born in Mildura (Victoria, Australia) and it was always clear that he wanted to become a winemaker. He graduated in Applied Science in Oenology from Roseworthy where he also completed his MBA some years later. 

Arthur began his career as a winemaker at Rosemount Estate, under the leadership of Philip Shaw, considered one of the most innovative winemakers in Australia. After 4 years he joined the Dromana Estate as Vineyard and Winery Manager. For 3 years he developed a range of super premium wines and one of Australia's first ranges of Italian varietal wines.

In 1997, Arthur moved to California to wok as Viticultural Manager at Bonny Doon Vineyards in Santa Cruz and later for the Hambrecht Vineyards and Wineries. 

In 2002 he joined the Seppelt Winery, one of Australia's oldest sparkling wine producers) as Senior Winemaker and Winery Manager, before joining the Codorniu Group in 2006, attracted by the challenge of working in Spain, managing 10 wineries in Spain, Napa and Argentina and working with totally different grape varieties. He has built  a strong, inspired and motivated team of winemakers who are consolidating the role of the Codorniu Group as a key player in the international wine arena. 

 

Kathryn O'Mara: Kathryn is the founder and owner of Artisan & Vine, the UK's first wine bar and shop to specialise in local and natural wines. Founded in 2008, Artisan & Vine stocks over 30 English wines, including a large range of sparkling wines. Kathryn's bold choices in wine specialisation have met with commercial and critical success. Artisan & Vine has won the International Wine Challenge award for Small Independent Merchant in 2010 and 2011, and English Wine Specialist in 2011.

Prior to opening Artisan & Vine, Kathryn enjoyed 12 years of corporate life, working in business strategy and supply chain for the likes of BP, IBM and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Kathryn is a native Australian who has lived in the USA and Germany, before settling in London.

 

Mike Paul: For the last 18 months, Mike has been the Wine Skills Business Management and Marketing Mentor. Wine Skills is an initiative set up by Plumpton College to provide advice to the the English wine industry on the best way forward. Mike also presents the WSET Diploma Marketing course and consults for several producers and distributors of international wines as an advisor, including Fairview of South Africa.

Prior to this Mike ran a number of high profile companies within the international wine industry, notably Western Wines, Southcorp (Europe) and Percy Fox.

 

Mike Roberts: Mike is the founder, Director and and Winemaker of Ridgeview Wine Estate. Ridgeview was established in 1994, specialising in traditional method sparkling wine from Champagne grape varieties, situated on the South Downs of Sussex. In 11 years of release, Ridgeview has won over 140 medals and 20 tropies in International and National competitions.

Mike is Chairman of the English Wine Producers, a board member of the United Kingdom Vineyards Association and on the steering committee for the DEFRA wine standards reform policy. Mike was awarded an MBE for his services to the English wine industry in the Queen's Birthday Honours 2011.

Ridgeview is now very much a family concern with both Mike's children and their partners having crucial roles within the business.

 

Jane Robichaud: An Australian native, Jane was educated in London, and then obtained her MS in Enology from UC Davis in California. It was there that she co-authored the celebrated UC Davis Wine Aroma Wheel. She later created the consumer-friendly Beringer Wine Tasting Wheel, winning the Golden Grape Award for Innovation from Food & Wine Magazine. Over the past 25 years she has worked in both winemaking and marketing sides of the business.

Jane started her career as assistant winemaker for a Sonoma Valley estate before landing at Napa Valley's Beringer Vineyards in 1989 as Research Winemaker. During her 17 years with the company she founded their dynamic sensory and consumer insights program, overseeing global research to provide winemakers with a tool to interpret consumer preferences. Working across many Fosters Wine Estates brands she relocated into marketing as Director, Consumer and Winemaking Insights, blending consumer-driven wines from California, Australia, Chile, Italy and France. With Innovations she created a low alcohol Chardonnay called White Lie targeting the female consumer.

Jane is Past President of the American Society for Enology and Viticulture and has been an invited keynote speaker at conferences and trade events in USA, Chile, Japan, UK and Australia.

Jane was most recently VP Global Business for Tragon, a leading consumer research company. She has since relocated to London and is now Consulting Winemaker for ConeTech and their affiliate company, TFC-Wines & Spirits Inc.

 

Dr Bertrand Robillard, Ph.D: Bertrand received his PhD degree in biological organic chemistry in 1985. After 2 years as a post-doctoral fellow in the National Research Council of Canada (Ottawa), he joined Champagne Moet & Chandon group as a researcher and later became head of enological researches. He currently works for the Institut Oenologique de Champagne in Epernay as R&D Manager.

A major part of his work has been dedicated to the understanding of bubble and foam in sparkling wines: glass impact on foam stability... and also various enological treatments on bubble quality. He has also worked on the cristallisation (potassium and calcium salts stabilisations) and more recently on oxydo-reduction phenomena which are occuring during process, agein on lees or at the disgorging step (air exchange in bottle).

He is the author of more than 50 national and international technical papers.

 

Joan Torrents: Joan is the fourth generation of a wine business family. By the age of 19 he received the honour of becoming Chevalier of Cava. Since graduating with an MSc in Chemistry and Winemaking Studies, Joan has been involved in product development in major wine regions and business development in European and Asian markets.

In 2007 Joan was nominated for Young Achiever in the UK by The Drinks Business magazine and also received the Michel Laroche Award for outstanding performance in the WSET Diploma.

Joan now heads wine buying for 1,600 restaurants and bars at Michells & Butlers. He is involved in winemaking and travels worldwide to source and blend to continue  delivering wine ranges that drive profit growth.  In 2011 he became a member of the Champagne Academy.

 

Dominique Tourneix: Dominique is the General Manager of DIAM Bouchage.

After graduating in Food Technology and Pharmacy from Montpellier, Dominique successfully developed his industrial experience in several multinational companies such as Mars Inc. and Yves Rocher Group before joining Diam Bouchage in 2003. 

He has implemented the revolutionary Supercritical CO2 process that has led to the development of the DIAM closure range. He has also managed the change of business strategy at DIAM, resulting in the company now focusing solely on technologically guaranteed cork closures. 

 

John Worontschak: An Australian winemaker with over 25 years international experience in all aspects of the wine industry, John became one of the first “flying winemakers back in the early 90s and has worked for numerous wineries in over 25 different countries. He is privileged to have had the opportunity and pleasure of seeing the global wine industry evolve and develop. Now a Director of Litmus Wines and a Winemaking Consultant for Four Corners Consultancy, John is currently involved in winemaking and wine sales in a number of different international markets.

 

Guy Woodward: Guy is the editor of the UK's leading consumer wine magazine, Decanter, where he has worked for eight years. He joined 'as a journalist, not a wine buff' and continues to think of himself in that vein. "I'm a consumer first and foremost, not a wine critic. Luckily, we have enough of those on the magazine already."

His role on the magazine is to dictate and direct editorial content - he oversees the entire commissioning process - rather than to write about and/or appraise wines. He does, however, make regular appearances in the mainstream press, TV and radio, commenting on topical, consumer-focused wine issues.

While his role requires a broad knowledge across all wine regions and styles that are available on the shelves, as well as a global perspective (over half of the magazine's readership is now overseas), Guy has been a supporter of English sparkling wine through both Decanter and also in the wider press. But he has gone on record as saying that producers face an uphill battle in persuading consumers that their wines are a better bet than Champagne, when the latter is often discounted to a cheaper price.

 

Bryony Wright: As founder and director of Proven Communication with 15 years PR experience and seven years working solely as a wine educator in the UK, Bryony is very well connected within the UK wine industry. She is an acknowledged expert in champagne, having worked for nearly 10 years managing trade and wine specialist communications for GH Mumm and Perrier-Jouet, before taking on new clients Dom Perignon, Veuve Clicquot and Moet & Chandon at the beginning of 2010.

follow us on: