Meet the Friend Archives - Circle of Wine Writers

Meet the Friend: Alfonso de Gaetano

Posted on December 28, 2022 by Amanda Barnes

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Meet the Friend: Martina Litta, INAVI

Posted on November 27, 2022November 27, 2022 by Amanda Barnes

Martina Litta is the Foreign Trade Manager of INAVI, Uruguay's national viticulture institute. In this interview, Amanda Barnes discovers what brought Martina into the world of wine and why she gets excited when she meets someone trying Uruguayan wine for the first time. What is your first memory in wine? The first memory that comes to my mind is being very young, around five or s...

Meet the Friend: Neil Palmer, Vintage Roots

Posted on October 23, 2022October 25, 2022 by Amanda Barnes

Neil Palmer is the Founder and Director of organic wine importer Vintage Roots, which he founded at the age of 26 with his friend Lance Pigott. In this Meet the Friend interview, Amanda Barnes finds out how Neil’s harvesting experiences in his 20s sparked a lifelong passion for wine and reggae. What got you into wine? Well, it was Dad who first showed me how to use a corkscrew. He liter...

Meet the Friend: Magdalena Kaiser, Wine Country Ontario

Posted on August 22, 2022August 26, 2022 by Amanda Barnes

Magdalena Kaiser is Director of Public Relations for Wine Country Ontario, and a longstanding Friend of the Circle. In this interview, Amanda Barnes learns about her wine story from siphoning wine at a young age with her father to managing cool climate conferences and being part of the growing, dynamic wine scene in Ontario. What was your earliest memory in wine? I suppose you coul...

Meet the Friend: Selim Bocti, VintageCellar

Posted on July 17, 2022August 1, 2022 by Amanda Barnes

Meet the Friend: Sylvia Petz

Posted on June 24, 2022June 28, 2022 by Amanda Barnes

Sylvia Petz is a Friend of the Circle with her prominent, and eponymously named, agency in Austria. In our Meet the Friend interview, we discover why she realised the value of top-quality Austrian wine at a young age and how she strives to drive forward organic wine production through her agency. How did you get into wine? My grandfather already attached great importance to good wine at ...

Meet the Friend: Sarah Hargreaves

Posted on May 23, 2022 by Amanda Barnes

Sarah Hargreaves specialises in PR and communications in southern France with her company In The Mood PR. She explains in this Meet the Friend interview how she developed her career there and why she finds the Languedoc-Roussillon one of the most fascinating regions to work with. Amanda Barnes also learns about Sarah’s favourite way to discover new wines and some the vineyard ambles that Sarah is ...

Meet the Friend: Paul Mabray, pix.wine

Posted on April 25, 2022April 27, 2022 by Amanda Barnes

Paul Mabray is one of the wine industry's foremost thinkers in bringing wine into the digital space. He has worked in important developments at wine.com, and founded vintank.com and winedirect.com, and today is focused on the development of pix.wine — a new wine discovery platform. Amanda Barnes interviews him as a new Friend of the Circle to find out what makes him tick, and how he envisions the ...

Meet the Member: Moshe Cohen

Posted on February 19, 2022February 21, 2022 by Amanda Barnes

Moshe Cohen on isreali wine and interview

Moshe Cohen is a wine communicator and podcast presenter based in England. Amanda Barnes interviews him on his favourite wine interviews and asks for tips on Israeli wine, as well as finding out why two wheels and a corkscrew are his favourite holiday companions. Moshe recently presented a CWW seminar based on Israeli wine which is streamable on our YouTube channel. Tell me about your first...

Meet the Friend: Ross Carter, The Drinks Trust

Posted on February 18, 2022February 21, 2022 by Amanda Barnes

Ross Carter has worked in many different areas of the industry over the years but most recently is becoming known for his work at The Drinks Trust (the drinks charity formerly called The Benevolent) as CEO. In this Meet the Friend interview, Amanda Barnes finds out how the parameters shifted for the charity during the pandemic and learns about its key campaigns for 2022. She also discovers how Ros...