Interview with Simon Broad, Wine Merchant

Simon is a partner in tengreenbottles, an independent wine retailer, and is also my business manager. Although we are in contact a lot, we tend to talk about what needs doing and about my business and we also share a love of literature and philosophy – so we often talk for ages about ideas and concepts and do the business bit swiftly at the end. But we don’t talk about wine! So interviewing Simon was amazing – hearing about his passionate and sensuous experience of drinking wine and recognizing how his love of wine is so profound and a part of him. As he described his experience of enjoying a good wine, I felt languid and relaxed, the way he described it made it seem very important that we slow down and savour all our experiences and especially notice what we are putting in our bodies and the effect it is having on them. I also wonder if I am missing out, as when I was young I had a few bad experiences ‘on wine’ and have never really ‘taken it back up’! Perhaps now is the time! tengreenbottles specialises in finding little-known Italian wine of great quality, flair and regional expression. All of our producers are hand-picked by us, and combine the best that tradition and terroir has to offer with the flair that modern wine-making techniques can bring. www.tengreenbottles.com