Different philosophies, same inspiration

If you’ve managed to stumble across my website and have a keen eye – you may have noticed a picture of Neil Warnock in the corner please allow me to explain and in doing so, explain how I fell into natural wine.

Growing up, I wasn’t exactly what you would call a ‘high academic achiever’. My true love was, and still is, football. 

After finishing Uni and spending a year teaching English in Madrid, I thought I should follow my tastebuds as I have always had an interest in cooking and eating. After a trip to Copenhagen in the summer of 2019, I had my epiphany moment: “I must work in the best restaurant I can”

So, with no idea of the journey I was about to begin, I emailed my CV to a restaurant called Jöro in Sheffield, and to my surprise, landed myself a job. Going in, I didn’t even like wine and to be honest, I couldn’t even tell you where Champagne was. 

Jöro is a tasting menu restaurant with unique wine pairings, so there was always interesting wines to try. I’ll always remember the feeling of tasting the first wine that got me hooked… a wine from the Vivapa Valley in Slovenia, called Zelen, from Burja winery, it had notes of banana and almost a wheat beer profile to it. I’m not saying that it was an objectively good or bad wine; but I had never tasted anything like it and for the first time in my life something new had peaked my interest (apart from my mastermind topic of identifying football stadiums from a birds eye view).

Fast forward seven years and a relentless pursuit to try and learn as much about this mysterious and confusing world, I am now the Head of Wine at Brawn in East London, one of the pioneers of natural wine in the UK, that celebrated its 15th year in 2025. 

My philosophy about wine is that, at the end of the day, it is just a drink, HOWEVER, it is a drink that is dictated by geography, geopolitics, climate, history, myths, family feuds and everything else. The world of wine is ever evolving and I absolutely love to share my knowledge with anyone and everyone who will listen. 

So, to summarise I named my project with a nod to my love of the game, in a very tongue and cheek line from a silly moment in football, that just so happens to have a player with the same name as a wine grape. 

It’s daft, unserious and unpretentious - but that is me!

Peter