For Jamie Graham, nothing has topped drinking a 1982 Lafite and 1982 Mouton Rothschild with a client over a Chinese hotpot under the flight path of the old Hong Kong airport. ‘It felt like aeroplanes were landing on the roof, the whole place was shaking and we were almost spilling our wine across the table,’ he says.
Graham learnt the ropes at Berry Bros, which he joined in 1989 – ‘for the very good reason that I turned out to be a hopeless soldier’, he says. He held senior positions at Farr Vintners and Fine & Rare Wines before setting up Brunswick in 2016. It turned over £4 million in sales in its first year.
‘It’s all about experience, knowledge and a love of wine, and I have met a number of different types of collectors,’ he says. ‘I like to get as close as I can to the people who’ll drink the wine. That way I know better than anyone what’s going to go up in value because I’m with the people who are drinking the great wines. If those customers stop pulling corks at the top end, there is no investor market.’
Graham sees value in the back vintages of Bordeaux: ‘I am also seeing strong demand for Domaine Romanée-Conti at the top end, as well as increasing interest in premier cru Burgundy and Barolo in the middle bracket.’
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