Riesling Fellows United Kingdom

Stephen Brook studied English and philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge. After many years as a publisher’s editor, in both the United States and Britain, he became a freelance writer in 1982 and has written many award-winning books on travel and wine. Among the latter, his “Liquid Gold: Dessert Wines of the World” won the Andre Simon Award in 1987. He has also completed two comprehensive revisions and updatings of the wine encyclopaedia “Hugh Johnson Wine Companion” (Der Grosse Johnson) in German, and in 2003 wrote “The Wines of Germany”, an in-depth look at the history of German wine.

He is a contributing editor to Decanter Magazine, where he writes regularly on wine, as well as a regular wine columnist for Fine Wine Magazine and Falstaff. His articles on food and restaurants have been published in Food & Travel and The Financial Times, among other publications. Furthermore, Stephen Brook is active as an experienced wine judge in competitions in England, France, Australia, California and Canada.

He has also written a book on the perennial British obsession with social class and, for good measure, a study of the Salvation Army, entitled God’s Army. In what spare time is left he enjoys travel, opera, going to the theatre and looking at buildings, both ancient and modern.

Martin Lam, food and restaurant consuktant from the UK, was awarded the ProRiesling title in 2006 and is truly passionate about wine.

In 1991 he started his own company importing German wines and now he represents wines from nine German wine producing regions. With a philosophy to  introduce the people of Belgium to top German wines, his knowledge on German Riesling knows no limits. 

Hew Blair is Chairman and Buying Director of Justerini & Brooks. A lifelong fan of German Riesling, his dedication has seen sales at Justerini & Brooks double year on year, "thanks to improvements in quality and labelling - and the fact that sommeliers love German wines." Now Chairman and Buying Director of the company, Hew was educated at both Harrow and Bordeaux University, specialising in viticulture and oenology. 

Hew worked extensively in the wine business in Europe from 1969 to 1973 and in 1973, started working at Percy Fox before joining Justerini & Brooks in 1974 as Buying Director. In 2008 he became Chairman of the company and he was Granted Royal Warrant in 2008. A member of the Buckingham Palace Wine Committee since 2008 and President of the Royal Warrant Holders Association since early, he really is wine trade royalty.

Stuart Pigott is a British wine critic and author who has lived in Berlin since 1993. Author of 'Best White Wine on Earth - The Riesling Story', Stuart was in his early twenties when he began writing about wine and published his first article in Decanter Magazine in 1984.

Married to sommelier and food writer Ursula Heinzelmann, he moved from the UK to Berlin in 1993 and published his first German-language book in 1994. From a young age, he joined fellow British wine writer (and Riesling Fellow) Hugh Johnson in taking a critical view towards the mass production mentality that prevailed in parts of the German wine industry, and thus became popular with more quality-oriented producers.

In recent years, taking his inspiration from Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe, he has written a number of free educational wine videos in the "Gonzo" style of journalism, and in 2008, he took lessons at the University of Applied Sciences in Geisenheim in Oenology and Viticulture.

Sebastian Thomas brought a love of fine German wines to Howard Ripley when he joined in 2000. The supplier now has one of the largest German lists of any UK agent and has won many merchant awards for its amazing German wine list including Harpers Specialist Merchant 2014 and the International Wine Challenge 2014. Sebastian found his way into wine after a career in book publishing. 

He started out selling wine to New York restaurants, and was fortunate that the sommeliers at the time ‘knew even less than he did’. He moved to England in 1995, and worked for Laytons before joining Burgundy specialist Howard Ripley in 2000. Since then, the portfolio has grown to include Pinot Noir from New Zealand, Oregon and Switzerland, as well as a broad selection of German wines.

In 1975 Nigel joined Walter S. Siegel Ltd and went on to buy the company in 1984 which was later to become Siegel Wine Agencies Ltd.

Since joining Siegel Wine Agencies, Nigel has become the agent for many Germany producers including Dr Loosen, Mosel, and in subsequent years, Gunderloch, Rheinhessen; Donnhoff, Nahe; Leitz, Rheingau; J. L. Wolf, Pfalz; Furst, Franconia; Karl H Johner, Baden and three years ago Jean Stodden, Ahr.

Nigel sold Siegel Wine Agencies to Mike Awin and Julius Barratt of Australian Wineries in 2005 and it was subsequently renamed Awin, Barratt, Siegel plc. Nigel is due to (reluctantly!) retire in 2014 where he will pursue his hobbies of sailing, singing and skiing.

Nigel was born in 1943 into a family who were very much involved in the wine and brewing trade. His father and Grandfather worked for C.W. Blundell Ltd of Plymouth and Kingsbridge and Nigel’s introduction into the wine trade began from this point.

In 1960 he joined J.J. Norman Ltd of Exeter and then went on to join the wine department in Jacksons of Piccadilly three years later. In 1964 Nigel was picking grapes at Chateau Angludet in Bordeaux and then moved on to work for various retailers ranging from Fortnum and Masons and Williams and Humbert to Norton and Langridge and Rigby and Evens.

Iris is committed to the detective work and the challenge of finding wines that are officially unavailable elsewhere and is determined to ‘find the treasure!’

Iris travels to Germany by car on a regular basis, driving through the wine estates, visiting winemakers, checking out private cellars and generally keeping an ear to the ground on where to find the rarest of wines. The WineBarn is regularly approached by private wine collectors from around the world who are looking to buy or sell some of their gems into the trustworthy hands of a likeminded collector.

Iris Ellmann founded The WineBarn over 11 years ago and since this time, it has become the name synonymous with supplying quality, modern German wine. Over the last 12 months the WineBarn has continued to expand its wine portfolio and it has strong links with a collection of award winning producers.

In 2012, The WineBarn won the IWC ‘UK Specialist Merchant of the Year - Germany 2012’ and was nominated for ‘Specialist Retailer of the Year 2012 - Germany’ in the Decanter World Wine Awards.

The world of antique wine sourcing has taken Iris Ellmann on many journeys to source the best wines in the world requiring skill, patience and a great deal of perseverance. Iris has built up a first class network of trusted suppliers, connected partners and exceptional producers.

Hugh Johnson became a member of the Cambridge University Wine and Food Society while an undergraduate at King’s College, Cambridge in the 1950s where he was reading English.

Johnson has been writing about wine since 1960. He was taken on as a feature writer for Condé Nast Publications upon graduation and started work on Vogue and House & Garden, becoming in 1962 editor of Wine & Food. In the same year he became wine correspondent of The Sunday Times, of which in 1967 he became Travel Editor. From 1968 to 1970 he edited Queen magazine in succession to Jocelyn Stevens.

He has published a wide array of books, starting with the publication of Wine in 1966. The publication of The World Atlas of Wine in 1971 was considered the first serious attempt to map the world's wine regions.

Since its launch in 1973 Johnson has been President of The Sunday Times Wine Club, part of Laithwaites. From 1986-2001 he was a Director of the Bordeaux First Growth Château Latour and in 1990 was a co-founder of The Royal Tokaji Wine Company in an attempt to rebuild the foundering Tokaji industry after Communism. 

In 1986 he started The Hugh Johnson Collection, which sold (until 2010) wine glasses and other artefacts related to wine, mainly in the Far East, with a shop in St James's Street, London.

His vintage - The Story of Wine was a 13-part TV series for Channel 4 and Boston P.B.S., first airing in 1989. Since 1977 he has compiled his annual Pocket Wine Book, selling many million copies in up to 14 languages.

Hugh’s 1961 tasting of a bottle of 1540 Steinwein from the German vineyard Würzburger Stein is considered to potentially be one of the oldest wines to have ever been tasted.

He was selected Decanter Man of the Year in 1995, was promoted Officer in the French Order Nationale du Mérite in 2004 and Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2007 'for services to wine-making and horticulture'. Earlier this year, he was awarded the IWC Lifetime Achievement Award.

David Motion is famed for the incredible range of German wines available through his shop The Winery in Maida Vale. His support for emerging wine producers is unparalleled and David never misses an opportunity to get people tasting German Rieslings through weekly wine tastings in store or sharing his expertise in various formats across the UK media.

Born in 1959, David grew up in Lincolnshire his English father and German mother.

David played piano from an early age and dropped out of the Royal Academy of Music after 2 years with plans to become a pop star. He became a recording engineer and quickly moved into the role of record producer working with many artists of the day and had some hits in the mid-1980s with Strawberry Switchblade, Red Box and, in Europe, with Carmel.

Following this, David moved into music writing and composition. He wrote the soundtrack for the movie "Orlando" in 1992, music for TV and many commercials, accumulating enough to pursue his parallel, and increasingly overwhelming, interest in wine.

David was introduced to wine at an early age through family holidays passing through the Rhineland, the Mosel and, as a teenager, Baden.

David’s interest in Australian and Californian wine developed after college. Shortly after, whilst working in studios, he became more interested in French wine and in particular Burgundy.

David bought The Winery in Maida Vale in 1996 and was quick to realise that by travelling and sourcing wines directly from small growers himself, the company could avoid buying from agents within the UK.

At this time, German wine was undervalued and at best, consigned to a few dusty bottles tucked in a corner but nevertheless David set off for Germany and arrived back with vanloads of dry German Riesling. Fortunately his customers did buy them - particularly the dry ones. So he bought more. And more.

German wine now represents a third of The Winery’s range and a third of their sales. 70% of the German range is Riesling, almost entirely trocken. The remaining 30% is Spätburgunder. The Winery currently works with 40 growers and is proud of its ever-evolving range and how it has managed to convert customers.

David was at the centre of a small storm in The Guardian and on BBC and Sky News a couple of years ago suggesting that wine tastes different according to the lunar calendar. He recently wrote a piece for Noble Rot magazine about the "Dark Art of Food and Wine Matching".
David enjoys travelling extensively and usually takes different colleagues with him on each buying trip.
Although most of his time is spent on The Winery, he continues to write, record and release music, albeit sporadically.

As one of the world’s leading wine writers, Jancis Robinson is one of the most influential figures in the wine industry. Her commitment to spreading the word about German Riesling has undoubtedly had a profound effect in changing the views of opinion leaders. Our industry is lucky to have such a strong force to push the German Riesling message.

After a virtually wine-free childhood and teenage years in a village of 46 people in northern Cumbria just south of the Scottish border, Jancis was introduced to wine at Oxford, where she read Maths & Philosophy while being exposed to fine food and wine for the first time. Jancis had long been fascinated by food so it was a very short step to fall in love with wine – something that happened over a glass of Chambolle-Musigny, Les Amoureuses 1959. But at that time the food and wine were regarded as irredeemably frivolous so she spent three years in the travel business, as a graduate trainee with Britain’s biggest holiday company. Following this, Jancis spent a year in Provence, surrounded by vineyards and people to whom eating and drinking were what life was all about. On her return to London Jancis was determined to find a job in either food or wine.

Jancis has now been described by Decanter magazine as 'the most respected wine critic and journalist in the world.’ Jancis Robinson writes daily for JancisRobinson.com (awarded the first ever Wine Website of the Year in the Louis Roederer International Wine Writers Awards 2010), weekly for The Financial Times, and bi-monthly for a column that is syndicated around the world. She is also editor of The Oxford Companion to Wine, co-author with Hugh Johnson of The World Atlas of Wine, and co-author of Wine Grapes - A complete guide to 1,368 vine varieties, including their origins and flavours. Each of these books is recognised as a standard reference worldwide.

An award-winning TV presenter, she travels all over the world to conduct wine events and act as a wine judge. In 1984 she was the first person outside the wine trade to pass the rigorous Master of Wine exams and in 2003 she was awarded an OBE by Her Majesty the Queen, on whose cellar she now advises.

She loves and lives for wine in all its glorious diversity, generally favouring balance and subtlety over sheer mass.

Video: Jancis Robinson on Wines of Germany