Uncorked: Tim Hanni MW

A trained chef and certified wine educator, Tim Hanni MW, has over thirty years experience in food and wine. He is a self-styled “flavour maven” and author of Why you like the wines you like: Changing the way the world thinks about wine.

What Vintage are you? 

1952

What bottle sparked your love of wine?

A 1964 Corton from Jaboulet-Vercherre that I was able to buy in 1969 when I was 17 years old and discovered if I asked for French wine nobody asked for proof of age (which was 21 years at that time). I was only good for two syllables so I became a two-syllable French wine specialist.

Ambition or talent – what matters more?

Yes.

What would you be as a wine?

A 1964 Fixin les Hervelets. Obscure, often a bit tired lately but surprising as hell from time to time. Unpredictable at this age.

Where are you happiest?

At the end of a fishing pole, wading in Caribbean flats for bonefish, for fun, and a nice grouper or snapper thrown in for the table.

What’s your greatest vice?

Eternal optimism – gets me in all sorts of trouble and of course there are the on-going delusions and detachments from reality.

Best advice you ever got?

That the lowest form of learning is knowing.

Your cellar’s underwater, which bottle would you dive in and save?

My Lotus Elise. Does my garage count as my cellar? 

What’s the best & worst thing about the wine business?

The people are the best, and sometimes the worst, thing about the wine business. Some people just take things, and themselves, far too seriously.

Personal satisfaction (Parker points)

93

Desert island vine?

Concord. I LOVE the taste of Concord grapes! Not sure how well they are going to hold up on my desert island. Do I get a Jethro Tull album with this, or just the vine?

Which wine would you like served at your funeral?

Whatever the hell anyone would like – drinks are on me! Oh wait, I am dead. Sorry! Kind of a ‘good news, bad news’ thing.

Concord grapes