LAURA
We visited two Gusbourne team members, Laura and Jon, to hear about the paths they have taken to their current roles. Laura Rhys’ story takes us into the bottle and out of the glass. Jon Pollard’s story takes us out of the ground into the bottle.
What led you to a career in the wine industry?
Laura. I grew up in Somerset, and as a family, we would go to France every summer for a holiday. I sampled a little French wine at Sunday lunch from
a young age. My parents were not wine collectors; we didn’t have a cellar, nothing like that. But I remember my Dad always put the bottle of wine on the hearth by the fire to air before drinking it. It was never anything fancy.
When I was 14, I started a part-time job at a small bistro for a few years. We were a small team, which allowed me to learn the craft and discover my passion for working in hospitality. I loved it.
I picked French, Business Studies, and Law for my A-Levels and planned to study law at university. But whilst I loved working in the restaurant, chatting with guests and building rapport with regular guests, I wasn’t studying enough, so I wouldn’t get the grades I needed. I changed my degree from Law
to International Hospitality Management.
I did a Wines and Spirits Education Trust (WSET) Wine Course in my first year as an extra module, a night course, which ignited my interest in wine. When I started at Cardiff Uni in 2000, the UK didn’t have the food and wine culture it has now.
I travelled whilst I was at university. I spent a year in the US and a term in Finland. I kept thinking, this is amazing. I can work in hospitality and in hotels, and this is how I can see the world. As a young girl growing up in Somerset and going to university in Cardiff, there was minimal opportunity for a Sommelier career. Still, while studying, I started working as a delivery driver for Majestic Wine. I got so excited about the wine world and how open people were with their time, teaching customers, guests, and the staff. Hospitality is incredibly welcoming to those who work within it and its guests.
I remember saying to my tutors, I like the idea of being a Sommelier. I understood it was a wine waiter, but I had no concept of the entire job. I remember a tutor saying, are you sure? The hours are long, and there is lots of heavy lifting. The reality in the UK then was that Sommeliers were nearly all men. A few other people asked me if I was sure about this career path, and you know, when someone says that you shouldn’t do something, it just makes you even more determined to do it.
So, after I graduated, I took a job at a hotel/restaurant in Tuscany, and I thought, this is it; I’m starting to travel the world. But that didn’t feel like the right place, and I came away from that job thinking, have I made the right choices? I returned after about six weeks, tail between my legs. I briefly considered becoming a florist until my mum saw an advert for Hotel du Vin in Winchester, and she encouraged me to visit because she knew it well. I interviewed, and I got the job. And that was the start of my career as a Sommelier.
Hotel du Vin was founded in Winchester in 1994 by Gérard Basset and Robin Hutson, who previously worked at Chewton Glen Hotel, where Basset was the Head Sommelier and Hutson the managing director. Gérard went on to win Best Sommelier of the World in 2010, and Hutson went on to chair the Soho House Group and to open The Pig group of hotels. When Hotel du Vin opened, it was unlike anything else in the UK. It was casual bistro dining but with 300 wines on the wine list. It was well-priced and amazingly sourced. It opened people’s eyes to exceptional wines in a more relaxed environment. It quickly became a training ground for Sommeliers.
I was in Winchester for two and a half years at Hotel du Vin, and when I look back, two and a half years sounds like nothing, but it felt considerable at the time. My Head Sommelier, there was a woman who was fierce and inspirational, and she was studying for her Master’s Sommelier Diploma while also going for the UK Sommelier of the Year competition. So, the culture was about self-development and being the best you could be. We would help her, and through that, I learned about blind tasting. Then, after a year or so, I started to do the competition as well, but I was just in the early regional stages at that point.
It was terrific to meet other Sommeliers, build a network, and understand more about the role by competing. Competing makes it sound very cut-throat, but it wasn’t at all. You want to win, but the wine industry is massively collaborative.
2023 harvest at Gusbourne.
“How can you not sit and chat about wine and feel like you’re amongst friends?”
Then, in 2007, I won the regional final of the UK Sommelier of the Year and got a trophy. I was so happy; it was a real moment of, gosh, I might be alright at this. I left Hotel du Vin as Assistant Head Sommelier. Gérard Basset was opening a new place, Hotel TerraVina, in the New Forest. Gérard is, in many ways, the godfather of the Sommelier industry in the UK. He very sadly passed away in 2019. But he had been the most generous and humble man and was influential in the careers of many others in the industry.
I remember calling Gérard and telling him I’d love to move on from Hotel du Vin at some point, asking him, can you help? Can you mentor me? What should I do? He said I am opening this restaurant. Would you consider coming to work for me? Amazing! I went for an interview, and I got the job.
I started working there before the restaurant opened to customers. I was his Head Sommelier for six years, which was great. I worked long hours, studied hard, and learned so much from him. Then, in 2009, I won the UK Sommelier of the Year. All the time, I was studying, going through the levels of the Master Sommelier, and I passed the Master Sommelier Diploma in 2010.
Around 2009, I said to Gérard, I’d love to have an English wine list. He was very supportive but a little dubious. He said I should go for it if I could source enough good quality English wine to make an English wine list. It was such a struggle back then. Not very many producers had distributor partners connected to restaurants. If I look at the contrast between then and now, it’s incredible. You’d have a hundred wines on that wine list today. I think that’s so cool. Back in 2009 and 2010, I could scrape together ten, maybe.
I moved to La Trompette in Chiswick, a Michelin Star restaurant, as Head Sommelier in 2014. It’s a wonderful restaurant, and I would have stayed there a lot longer had I not discovered Gusbourne.
I tasted Gusbourne’s wines and was blown away by their quality and style. They were different from anything I’d tasted before in the UK. There was a richness, a weight; it was just something extra. So, I visited Gusbourne and loved seeing the passion and precision in this rural corner of Kent. The wines were incredible, and I quickly added them to the wine list at La Trompette. I remember dropping really unsubtle hints about how I’d love to get involved with the English wine industry.
2023 harvest at Gusbourne.
So, you’ve gained knowledge, titles and accolades. Is this when you move to Gusbourne?
Laura. A little while later, I got an email from Gusbourne asking if I would like to have a cup of tea with them. I thought, could this be it? And that’s how I started at Gusbourne.
When I was at Hotel du Vin, English wine was a tough sell. People didn’t appreciate it or understand it. They visited vineyards abroad but didn’t appreciate that we could grow grapes in the UK. Then, when I looked at the English wine list at Hotel TerraVina, people were more open to the idea. And by the time I was at La Trompette, people often asked for a glass of Gusbourne over a glass of champagne. There’s a snowball effect for English wine in some respects; people are starting to understand that vineyards here produce excellent wines. But generally, people feel much more comfortable talking about wine, tasting it, and drinking it than 20 years ago. It all feels more approachable.
Wine is one of those things that, in many respects, is an affordable luxury. People treat themselves to a £30 bottle of wine, for example. Not as an everyday purchase, but you open that bottle of wine, share it with a friend and enjoy each other’s company. The image of wine has evolved so much over the last couple of decades with the increase in younger Sommeliers, in more casual dining, with more female Sommeliers as well.
My title is Global Ambassador, but most of my role at Gusbourne is talking about the wines, often with an educational aspect. In many respects, I make people feel welcome and bring them into our world, whether I’m here or travelling and supporting some of our export markets. For example, people connect with a little bit of Gusbourne through me when I’m in New York City, Oslo, or Tokyo.
I also get involved in many of the blending decisions. Having spent nearly 20 years in hospitality and more than ten years as a Sommelier before joining Gusbourne, I often think about wines in terms of when they’ll be opened and enjoyed. So, if I’m doing tastings, I’m tasting with the winemaking team, who look at it from a purely winemaking, scientific point of view; that’s their job. I come to it thinking of the finished product and matching it with food. So, blending the two is a fascinating tasting session. I learned so much from the winery team regarding the science behind it. Nothing stands still because we’re always experimenting and trying to innovate.
2023 harvest at Gusbourne.
Laura Rhys
Master Sommelier
Global Brand Ambassador
Gusbourne Estate, Kenardington Road, Appledore, Ashford, TN26 2BE