The Wine Blokes

Robert Mondavi of Napa Valley, the founder of the modern US fine wine industry and a global symbol of American wine and food, passed away the morning of May 16, 2008. He was 94. The Mondavi family stated that the legendary vintner died peacefully at his home in Napa Valley. In tribute to this colossus […]

Meriel Tufnell was one of England’s first female race jockeys -participating in the first British races sanctioned for women in 1972. She was victorious in her first race at Kempton Park in the Goya Stakes. She was photographed that day, smiling and mud-spattered, clutching a bouquet and a cup of champagne.

Much has been made of the war-time PM’s predilection for booze, but what exactly did Winston Churchill drink on those long mornings reading TOP SECRET documents in bed with the cat?
Over lunchtime meetings with politicians, military chiefs and family, Churchill would loyally drink Pol Roger -followed by brandy. He was supplied by shipments from Madame […]

Alan Clark was a maverick figure in the Conservative Party from 1974. It was a surprise when Margaret Thatcher named him parliamentary under-secretary for the Department of Employment. Clark was less than interested in employment matters and it showed. Just before reading his first ministerial speech on equal pay to the House of Commons in […]

Thomas Becket became Archbishop of Canterbury, only to be murdered in his Cathedral for refusing to endorse the divorce of Henry VIII.
Whilst exiled in France during 1166, Becket drank the best wine that money could buy

As well as being a celebrated children’s author, photographer and linguist, Roald Dahl also had a penchant for chocolate and fine wine. He even went so far as to make a giant sphere of silver wrappers in his garden, such was his taste for chocolate. After his death in 1990, some of his wine collection […]