Grape and Grain

My name is Mark and I joined Grape and Grain in 2019, and I was delighted to become Director of the business in December 2020. My first experience of wine started by being fascinated by the bottles of full-bodied Aussie reds that my Dad used to bring home in the mid-90s.

The quirky names and labels were one thing, but I couldn’t get my head around how this stuff had travelled across the globe! Little did I know that 20 years later I would be lucky enough to visit some of those vineyards.

When I was old enough to drink what was inside the bottle, I approached one of my best friends who was the wine advisor where I worked (a good friend to have and he is still to this day). I said I wanted to learn more about wine, and he kindly drew up a list of wines to try. One of them was South African Red, the grape variety escapes me, but it was the first wine that really captivated me. It is also one I didn’t actually like!

However, it showed me that not all wine tastes the same, and that each one has unique characteristics. Since then, I spent several years working on the railways, but that wasn’t my thing. Facing another dreaded shift my wife said to me ‘why don’t you look at doing some wine classes?’. I signed up to my first one straight away and I had started the journey that would take me to where I am today. People thought I was mad when I left the railway. I halved my wage overnight to join Majestic in 2018. No regrets. It is the best thing I have done. A few years and WSET qualifications later, I am now running my local wine shop- my absolute dream!