It Started with ChatGPT

Two days ago, I received a phone call while I was in the gym.

Not especially unusual, except that the caller had found me through a rather circuitous route. A Portuguese wine producer, newly arrived in London, had asked ChatGPT which importers and wholesalers might be a good fit for their wines in the UK.

Happily, Promised Cask came up number one.

From there, they found my details on Wine-Searcher, picked up the phone and asked whether I might have time to meet and taste their wines. I willingly agreed. There are considerably worse ways to interrupt a workout.

A few hours later, I found myself sitting outside St. James's Café on Pall Mall with Daniela and Nuno of Geographic Wines, who had rather gamely arrived with bottles in hand. The café very kindly allowed us to open them, and we settled in for what was supposed to be a relatively quick tasting.

It became apparent fairly quickly that I was tasting something special.

There were the scores, of course. Their wines have received 94 points from James Suckling, which is hardly an insignificant endorsement. But scores only tell you so much. What interested me more was the story sitting on the other side of the table.

Geographic Wines is very clearly a passion project for Daniela and Nuno, a wonderfully warm couple who are due to be married next year. Over the following hour, they told me about the quinta they had recently purchased in the Douro and their ambitions for it, before producing a video of this beautiful property nestled against the riverbank.

Suddenly, the wines in front of us had a geography, a home and two people behind them.

That, for me, is one of the great pleasures of this business. Wine has a remarkable ability to collapse the distance between places and people. One minute you are answering an unexpected phone call at the gym; a few hours later you are sitting on Pall Mall learning about a vineyard on the banks of the Douro from the couple who have decided to pour themselves into it.

After more than an hour of tasting and talking, Daniela and Nuno needed to head off for dinner. There was, however, just enough time for a quick pint around the corner at one of the local watering holes first.

Naturally, after an afternoon discussing the finer points of Portuguese wine, we ordered beer.

Sometimes the best relationships in wine begin in the most unlikely ways. This one started with ChatGPT, moved to a cafe table on Pall Mall and ended over a pint.

We'll see where it goes next.