![]() And in 2015, he launched his first wine under the name too, that controversial rosé with Attie Louw. From there he led the wine programme at &Union.Īll this gave rise to The Wine Thief, a multi-tiered wine platform delivering all kinds of services, from consulting and wine tours to staff training and private tastings. ![]() A tenure, which earned him the Diners’ Club Sommelier of the Year consecutively in 20. He remembers receiving his qualification while working at one of South Africa’s top restaurants, La Colombe. He neatly solved this problem by signing up to the Cape Wine Academy, where he eventually graduated with the Cape Sommelier Certification. Verity was on course to South Africa, and Ewan came right along with.Īrriving on African soil for the first time in 2011, Ewan needed, well, a visa. During all this he was studying hospitality at Oxford Brookes University, and was luckily enough to work under Rick Stein at some point.īut perhaps his most fortuitous moment, was, when having a beer at the local in Oxford he met his wife, Botswanian Verity FitzGerald. He quickly added cask-conditioned real ale making to his skill-set. Born in Cambridge, a stint in Detroit as a kid (his dad worked for Ford), many holidays in the South of France, where his family once had a home-as his enthusiastic pronunciation of anything French shows.Īnd as a young adult, settling in Somerset, where he was first introduced to the art of fermentation working for cider house, Orchard Pig. Both him and his assistant winemaker Franco looked at me a bit funny at first, but then the seeds of passion for experimentation were sewn, and now we're on our fifth vintage!”Įwan has an accent layered with origin clues to a life lived in a few places. It all started with Attie Louw of Opstal Estate, out in Slanghoek, where I pitched an idea to him about using petit verdot to make a barrel-fermented blanc de noir. “I wanted to use my skills as a sommelier to create truly unique expressions of wines as well as to learn along the way. This is what the Wine Thief is all about, taking his passion as a sommelier and combining it with small-batch winemaking, producing each wine alongside a winemaker he admires. Loaded with lime and tangy citrus with a stony, super-dry finish, the MCC is a collaboration with Christa von la Chevallerie of Huis van Chevallerie. “But honestly if you are into bubbly and don’t have a hatchet on your person…” “I do it to annoy people,” he says characteristically deadpan. Inside Ewan Mackenzie twists a knife around the wax capsule of his Costa del Swart Viura Vonkelwyn 2019, that’s right a bottle of sparkling wine with a wax seal. A Cape storm lashes at the glass doors of Chef’s Warehouse on Bree. It’s my first restaurant visit in 100 days. If you are interested in learning about wine or beer, would like to meet the artisans that have created these products, or would like access to special offers or allocated products, please sign up for our email list.Wine Trailblazers: Ewan Mackenzie aka The Wine Thief Located in Downtown Walla Walla, we are here to serve our customers seven days a week. Our customers are our friends, family, and visitors, and we cannot wait for the opportunity to share the story of our passion and help you find the next sip that you will fall in love with. Our team is a group of enthusiastic, educated, and experienced professionals who are there to help our customers pick a bottle for any occasion, price point, and preference. From rare and allocated wines and beers to the delightfully independent and unique producers, there is a story of time, place, and people in every glass that needs to be shared. Today, we are thrilled to present this diverse list of beverages-from classic to downright wild, to the Walla Walla community and beyond, through our clubs and website. The Thief buyers are constantly on the hunt for a wide range of products made with authenticity, craft, and style, no matter the country or region they happen to be located in. The goal has been and will always be the creation of a world-class bottle shop located in the heart of the Washington wine scene. Our shop was created with a passion for great wine and beer from every corner of the world.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |