Food & Drink

Guy Ritchie, the British director known for his stylized gangster films such Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. Yet one could argue his true passion lies in his Wild Kitchen Capstone. Part of his Cashmere Caveman Co, it is an innovative take on outdoor entertaining, primeval cooking, with luxurious features and modern comforts for fire, food and friends.

The Coronation Food Project is inspired by King Charles III which seeks to tackle food waste and food insecurity across all four nations of the United Kingdom. The project hopes to establish an enduring legacy in His Majesty's name by encouraging others to take part in the fund's vision and mission and to help it grow. The Project aims to rescue surplus food and redistribute it to those who need it most, whilst supporting local farmers and reducing carbon emissions

Writing for the prestigious luxury lifestyle magazine Club Oenologique, Simon Pavitt outlines how tech entrepreneurs are bringing a Silicon Valley mindset to the world of fine wine. We consider the disruptive impact of tech on wine lovers and explain the benefits for those willing to embrace the digital evolution. Often seen as old-fashioned, fragmented and complex, it’s an industry that has been slow (even overtly resistant) to adopt mainstream technologies, let alone cutting-edge ones

Jane asked me to write about a new tool using cutting-edge technology called ChatGPT and its potential impact on wine, I was happy to help. …This is one of the first times that an AI tool of this type has become available to the mainstream, certainly one that is so easy to use and inevitably its adoption will be fast.

This is an extract from the Future Technology in Fine Wine Report, Wingman Founder Simon Pavitt wrote for the London Technology Club. Published in October 2021, the report provided a meta-style analysis of the potential impact technology could have on the fine wine industry. This, in our humble opinion, is a typical day not too far away for a fine wine lover.

We spoke with Alex Tait (Al), the father part of the ‘father-daughter duo’ that own and run The Orange Bakery in the classically small British market town of Watlington, Oxfordshire. Since opening just under two years ago, the bakery has been a huge success with the local community, foodies and pop stars alike

Michael Baum is a serial technology entrepreneur and venture capital investor. In September 2014 Michael and his family switched gears to a new project, purchasing the prestigious Burgundian winery Château de Pommard. What began as a passion has turned into a Capstone, a mission to change the way wine is sold and enjoyed, applying Silicon Valley thinking and experience to a very traditional industry, ruffling a few French feathers in the process…

In a 2019 report we wrote and published for the London Technology Club: Future Technology in Wine, we featured Mike T Barrow, the pioneering winemaker who, in 2003, gave up his thriving career in IT in the US to move to Mendoza, Argentina and start a boutique organic winery named Costaflores. Fast forward to 2021 and Mike has established the most progressive and forward-thinking winemaking lab in the world.

He has been described as flamboyant, visionary, driven, exceptional, genius, volatile and probably not surprisingly, arrogant. Napa Valley winemaker Jayson Woodbridge affords every detail money can buy to make the best wine possible. It is a quest for perfection. Often against common wisdom and making less than fiscal sense, it is however, brutally simple. He does whatever is necessary to make the best possible wine for each vintage. Hundred Acre Winery is his Capstone.

We are entering into an accelerated era of precision viticulture whereby advances in technology in fine wine making are enabling producers to make the right decisions and grow with greater precision. The wine maker of the future is as much a data analyst as a farmer. Technology is helping growers do less in the wine making process, not more

Owning a vineyard and making your own wine; one of the more romantic capstone dreams. There are so many alluring elements, from the beautiful wine estate with green vine canopies stretching into the horizon, the connection with nature and the land.

We spoke with Grant Ashton the founder and CEO of the iconic Mayfair private members’ club for wine lovers 67 Pall Mall. Within five years the club is already established as the haven for oenophiles in the heart of St James’s. The team regularly win Best Sommelier in London awards and, with over 26,000 bottles of wine from 42 countries and 1000 wines by-the-glass, the club is considered to have one of the best wine lists in the world.

One fine wine brand that has fully embraced a hybrid digital business model is the fine wine Private Member’s Club 67 Pall Mall. The Club, founded in St James’s London in 2015 by then-banker Grant Ashton, was originally designed to be the perfect physical place for wine aficionados, enthusiasts, makers, traders, writers, journalists and sommeliers to meet and share their passion for wine

We look at some of the food trends and predict / pontificate on the brands in F&B that will accelerate their growth (and others that will slow)...