Winner of the 2025 Derouet Jameson Award for outstanding results in the WSET level 4 Diploma in wines.

As a child there was always wine around, but it probably wasn’t my father’s damson home brew wine that inspired my love of wine. That responsibility almost certainly lies with my Austrian brother-in-law Franz. Trips to visit Birgit, who was studying in Vienna, nearly always featured a visit to a wine maker or two, and Franz was generous in sharing amazing wines from his own cellar with us.

The love affair deepened when my wife Birgit and I took Michael Schuster’s advanced fine wine course. In the basement of his house tasting a wonderful range of fully mature French wines was nothing less than an epiphany.

But in the end it is clearly Adam Wander’s fault that my interest has grown into a borderline obsession (well actually Stuart is doubtless also culpable!). One sunny Sunday afternoon in August I opened the front to find Adam and his son Ben standing there. Ben was about to join my daughter Bea’s primary school class the next morning and was in need of a friendly face.  We soon left the children to their own devices, and I’m not sure how much the introduction helped Ben settle in, but Adam & I certainly bonded over a bottle of Bordeaux in the garden and the rest as they say is history.

In 2009 we set up Wander Curtis Wine as a way to share our passion and our knowledge with others, and have provided tasting experiences, reviews, recommendations and consulting services ever since.

A few years ago I made the exciting decision to wind down my carrier in town planning and design and to make wine my primary focus and I recently fulfilled a long held desire to sit the WSET diploma for which I was lucky enough to receive the Derouet Jameson Award for outstanding results. 

I’ve brought three enduring interests with me into the wine world: a passion for environmental and social sustainability, a drive to continuously explore and learn and a love of communication and sharing.

In the world of wine there is so much to discover and learn; the people, the places, and the history weave together to create a rich tapestry of extraordinary stories.  And these wonderful yarns end up as a liquid in a glass that you can actually taste!

Sometimes a little help is needed to trace the thread that connects everything together and to makes sense of it all and that’s what I hope we can help with through our tasting experiences along with the advice and reviews on this website.

Cheers, Santé, Prost, Salud, Saúde, Kanpai, Cin Cin, Yamas, Skål, Gesondheid, Gānbēi, Na Zdrowie, Sláinte!