The Tim Atkin Cork Talk Podcast

Cork Talk with Martin Hofstätter

20 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Martin Foradori Hofstätter is a fourth-generation producer from the Alto Adige, who also makes wine in Trentino as well as Germany’s Mosel Valley. ...

Cork Talk with Anouck Dann

13 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Anouck Dann was born among the vines of the Valais in Switzerland. After a spell in the hotel industry, where she was inspired by the example of Césa...

Cork Talk with Chiara Boschis

06 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Chiara Boschis comes from a historic winemaking family in Piedmont but she had to struggle to follow the same career as her other siblings. Taking ove...

Cork Talk with Mercedes and Maria José Granier

27 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

María José Granier fell in love with the old vines of the high-altitude Cinti Valley at first sight. A passionate advocate of arboreal viticulture a...

Cork Talk with Michael Silacci

19 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Silacci grew up on a dairy farm in the San Francisco Bay Area but didn’t discover his calling in life – wine – until he did a harvest in...

Cork Talk with Richard Kershaw

12 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Richard Kershaw MW started out as a chef, but then switched to wine instead. After a spell at La Réserve in Hampstead, where the comedian Peter Cook ...

Cork Talk with Ben Witchell

05 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A musician by training, Ben Witchell moved into winemaking after a career in IT, working first in Beaujolais before setting up in his own venture, Fli...

Cork Talk with Anne McHale

29 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A talented singer and linguist, Anne McHale is a northern Irish Master of Wine who’s one of the best teachers in the business as well as gifted stor...

Cork Talk with Pierre Henry Gagey

23 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Pierre-Henry Gagey is a passionate Burgundian who believes that his region is a “kind of miracle”, working at top négociant Maison Louis Jadot si...

Cork Talk with Matt Thomson and Sophie Parker-Thomson

15 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Matt Thomson and Sophie Parker-Thomson MW set up Blank Canvas Wines together in 2012, focusing on terroir-driven wines from single sites in the North ...

Cork Talk with Beverley Blanning

09 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

After spells in accountancy and advertising, Beverley Blanning decided that what she really wanted to do was write about wine, specialising in the Loi...

Cork Talk with Eduardo Chadwick

18 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Eduardo Chadwick is one of the most significant figures in the Chilean wine industry. He’s the man behind such famous brands as Don Maximiano Founde...

Cork Talk with Robin Copestick

12 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Robin Copestick got into the wine industry by accident when he saw an advert in the window of a wine merchant in Maida Vale. That led to a 19-year-car...

Cork Talk with Michael Zaccagnini

05 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Zaccagnini is a second-generation producer in Ribera del Duero, who trained under the legendary Mariano García, formerly of Vega Sicilia, as ...

Cork Talk with Pierre Mansour

27 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Pierre Mansour caught the wine bug after drinking a bottle of 1982 Château Léoville-Las-Cases with his Lebanese dad while he was at university. Afte...

Cork Talk with Christina Makris

20 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Dr Christina Makris is a philosopher, art lover and wine writer, three passions that she’s combined in her latest book, Art In Vineyards, pairing th...

Cork Talk with Dermot Sugrue

14 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Dermot Sugrue could have made a living as a professional cyclist in Ireland, but a post-university harvest job in Bordeaux led to a career making wine...

Cork Talk with Giles Cooke MW

06 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Giles Cooke MW started his career at Majestic, before working for Scottish merchant Alliance Wine for 30 years. Since 2011, he’s also had his own di...

Cork Talk with Amanda Thomson

31 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Amanda Thomson was a successful TV journalist, interviewing the likes of Salman Rushdie and George Clooney, when she decided to give it all up and mov...

Cork Talk with Andy Neather

24 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Andy Neather worked at Friends of the Earth in the late 1990s, and it turned him into an environmentalist. Now a freelance journalist, he’s just co-...

Cork Talk with Natasha Hughes

16 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Beaujolais suffers from a lot of myths that “don’t stack up”, according to Natasha Hughes MW, whose new book about the region is the most compre...

Cork Talk with Simon Farr

10 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Simon Farr’s career in the wine business spans 50 years, a half century that’s seen him work in vineyards, retail, wholesaling and the fine wine a...

Cork Talk with Chris Carpenter

02 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Regarded as one of the best winemakers in the world, with a particular love for Cabernet Sauvignon and other Bordeaux grapes, Chris Carpenter oversees...

Cork Talk with Jonas Olofsson

26 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Author of The Forgotten Sense, a fascinating book about smell, Jonas Olofsson is an olfactory scientist and a professor of psychology at the Universit...

Cork Talk with Donovan Rall

18 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Donovan Rall is one of South Africa’s gentle giants, a former second-row rugby player with the touch of a pianist. After spells overseas in New Zeal...

Cork Talk with Jason Lett

11 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Jason Lett is a second-generation Oregon winegrower, who took over from his father David, one of the region’s pioneers in the 1960s. After a degree ...

Cork Talk with Adriana Ochoa

05 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Adriana Ochoa is the sixth generation of her family to make wine in Navarra, but the first to have studied in Bordeaux and worked in Australia. Since ...

Cork Talk with Susan Lin MW

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Does listening to music affect our impression of wine? Some professional tasters argue that only silence will do. Susan Lin is the ideal person to giv...

Cork Talk with Antonio Amorim

08 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Antonio Amorim runs the biggest natural cork company in the world. He took over the reins in 2001 at a time of existential crisis for the industry bec...

Cork Talk with Cliff Roberson

31 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Cliff Roberson has had an eventful and very successful career in the wine trade, spanning 60 years and taking him to New York, Bordeaux, Chile and bac...

Cork Talk with João Portugal Ramos

25 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

João Portugal Ramos went to a German school in Lisbon, an education that has helped him bring a bit of organisation to his subsequent career. Among t...

Cork Talk with Charlie Melton

17 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Charlie Melton was on a road trip across Australia when he got a part-time job as a cellar hand in the Barossa Valley. More than 50 years later, he’...

Cork Talk with Willy Pérez

11 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Willy Pérez originally wanted to be a musician, but after surviving cancer in his late teens, he decided to follow his father, Luis, into the wine bu...

Cork Talk with Marquis Sauvage

03 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Marquis Sauvage got into wine when he was at college in Colorado, beginning with White Zinfandel of all things. After opening Denver’s first wine ba...

Cork Talk with Spyros Zoumboulis

27 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Spyros Zoumboulis is a Greek winemaker with an international perspective, having worked in France, Argentina and Bulgaria as well as his native countr...

Cork Talk with Cherie Spriggs

20 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Cherie Spriggs was born in Canada, but has made her name in England at Nyetimber as one of the world’s leading sparkling winemakers. A classically t...

Cork Talk with Sam Harrop

13 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sam Harrop MW is an Auckland-based consultant winemaker with a cosmopolitan outlook, a man who has been influenced by the time he’s spent in Spain, ...

Cork Talk with Paul Cluver

05 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Paul Clüver’s family has owned De Rust Estate in Elgin since the 1890s, but it wasn’t until 1987 that his neurosurgeon father, also called Paul, ...

Cork Talk with Jorge Drexler

29 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Musician, Oscar winner and wine lover, Jorge Drexler was a successful doctor in Montevideo before he became a celebrated singer songwriter, or cancion...

Cork Talk with Adrianna Catena

23 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Adrianna Catena is a distinguished historian specialising in the expansion of the Spanish empire in the 15th and 16thcenturies, as well as a partner i...

Cork Talk with Felipe Müller

16 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Felipe Müller’s dad has never drunk alcohol, but that didn’t stop his son studying viticulture and oenology. After a formative spell working alon...

Cork Talk with Sam Caporn MW

08 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sam Caporn got into wine by accident at university when a friend of her twin sister suggested she run what amounted to a drinking club. Her subsequent...

Cork Talk with Marco Ventrella

02 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Marco Ventrella ran restaurants and nightclubs as a young man, but switched to a very successful career in wine in his late twenties. Now established ...

Cork Talk with Fernando Mora MW

25 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Fernando Mora MW originally trained as a mechanical engineer, but decided he wanted to become a winemaker after visiting Rioja as a tourist. A passion...

Cork Talk with Bryan MacRobert

18 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Bryan MacRobert grew up on a farm near Cape Town and always wanted to be a winemaker. Working for Eben Sadie in Priorat gave him the chance to travel ...

Cork Talk with Kate McIntyre

11 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Kate McIntyre MW’s parents were pioneers in the cool climate of Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, but her initial intention was to be a theatre dir...

Cork Talk with Christopher Cannan

03 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Christopher Cannan has worked in the international wine business for more than 50 years, representing some of the greatest producers through his compa...

Cork Talk with Alex Hunt

28 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Master of Wine Alex Hunt is a published journalist and a prodigiously talented musician – his first love, he says – who has a very busy day job as...

Cork Talk with Charles Metcalfe

20 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Charles Metcalfe is both a singer and a wine writer, someone who has combined the two jobs for more than 40 years. An expert on the wines of Spain and...

Cork Talk with Craig Wessels

14 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Craig Wessels started his own media company after dropping out of university, but he’d always wanted to be a farmer. After a three-day winemaking co...

Cork Talk with Vicky Torres

06 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Vicky Torres didn’t produce wine until she was 35, but she’s certainly made up for it since. Her expressive, artisanal, wines – be they white, r...

Cork Talk with Martin Krajewski

28 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Martin Krajewski left school wanting to be a golf pro but got a job in the City that ended up making him a fortune instead. Focused full-time on the w...

Cork Talk with Matt Wilkin

21 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Matt Wilkin’s parents were teetotal, but that didn’t put him off going into hospitality or developing a passionate interest in wine. After a coupl...

Cork Talk with Gerd Stepp

13 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Gerd Stepp was brought up on a grape and apple farm in the village of Bad Dürkheim. After working in wineries in Italy, Zimbabwe and South Africa, an...

Cork Talk with Mary Bridges

06 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Mary Bridges grew up on a farm in Inverness and worked in a Michelin starred restaurant before deciding she wanted to be a winemaker. After a vintage ...

Cork Talk with Felicity Carter

30 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Felicity Carter is a journalist who specialises in the business of wine. More recently, she’s become an acknowledged expert on health and alcohol po...

Cork Talk with John Duval

23 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

John Duval is one the legends of the Australian wine industry. He’s known for his work as chief winemaker at Penfolds, where he was in charge of mak...

CorkTalk with Toti Undurraga

16 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Toti Undurraga’s family have been well known in the Chilean wine industry since the late 19th century, but he was always determined to forge his own...

Cork Talk with Jen Parr

09 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Jen Parr started out working in the software industry after studying English and Spanish literature at university, but moved into the wine business af...

Cork Talk with Elizabeth Gabay

20 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Elizabeth Gabay MW was born in New York, grew up in London and has lived in the French Alps for the last 20 years. Following a mixed early career in j...

Cork Talk with Rod Smith

13 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Rod Smith began his working life as an illustrator but moved into wine after landing a part-time job at Oddbins. After a brief spell in the fine wine ...

Cork Talk with Praisy Dlamini

06 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Brought up on a sugar cane farm in Kwa-Zulu Natal, where her parents were teetotallers, Praisy Dlamini got a bursary from the Department of Agricultur...

Cork Talk with Roman Roth

28 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Roman Roth was brought up in the Black Forest, where his father was a cooper, but decided to become a winemaker in his teens. After vintages in Califo...

Cork Talk with Tom Gilbey

21 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Tom Gilbey’s family have worked in the wine and spirits trade since the mid-19th century – they had a famous gin as well as owning a Bordeaux châ...

Cork Talk with Dawn Davies

14 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dawn Davies is a Master of Wine who also specialises in spirits. Originally a top sommelier at restaurants like Zuma and The Ledbury, she moved into r...

Cork Talk with Carmelo Peña Santana

07 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Growing up in Las Palmas, Carmelo Peña Santana’s dream was to have his own restaurant.  But after working as a sommelier for a year, he became a w...

Cork Talk with Leo Erazo

31 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Leo Erazo has made wines on five different continents, but these days he’s exclusively associated with the Itata Valley, Chile’s most historic win...

Cork Talk with Gus Zhu

24 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Gus Zhu started out studying horticulture at university but caught the wine bug when he attended a tasting class given by one of his professors. Since...

Cork Talk with Noel Young

18 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Noel Young’s dad ran a pub, so you could say he was born into the booze trade. He brewed his first beer at the age of 15 and set up his own very suc...

Cork Talk with Kelli White

11 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Kelli White’s love of wine was sparked by a trip to Paris as an undergraduate and a student job in a Boston retail store. After working as a sommeli...

Cork Talk with Chris Blandy

03 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Chris Blandy of the Madeira Wine Company is the seventh generation of his family to live and work in the wine trade on this volcanic island. A native ...

Cork Talk with Callie Louw

27 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Callie Louw wanted to be a doctor when he was young, but the wine world should be grateful he ended up studying oenology instead. More of a farmer tha...

Cork Talk with Konstantin Baum

20 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Konstantin Baum is a German Master of Wine with a well-honed sense of humour, increasingly famous for his You Tube videos that bring a bit of fun as w...

Cork Talk with Rafael Palacios

13 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Rafael Palacios was more interested in motorbikes than wine until his early twenties, despite growing up above a bodega in Rioja. He’s certainly mad...

Cork Talk with Elizabeth Berger

06 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Elizabeth Berger is a Tuscany-based wine and olive oil expert, who is able to draw fascinating parallels between the two worlds. Where wine has grape ...

Cork Talk with David Baverstock

15 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

David Baverstock grew up in South Australia, but emigrated to Portugal for love and wine. He started out in the Douro Valley, before moving to the mor...

Cork Talk with Martín Kaiser

08 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Martín Kaiser excels as both a viticulturist and a winemaker. Born and brought up in Mendoza, where he still works and lives, he has transformed the ...

Cork Talk with Queena Wong

02 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Queena Wong got interested in wine when she moved from Australia to London to work in finance in her mid-twenties. A passionate collector, she also ha...

Cork Talk with Giorgi Dakishvili

26 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Giorgi Dakisivhili is one of Georgia’s most accomplished winemakers, a man who’s equally comfortable employing historic and modern techniques. One...

Cork Talk with Pieter Walser

18 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Pieter Walser is one of the wine industry’s great mavericks. Surfer, artist and creator, he’s the man behind some of the Cape’s most distinctive...

Cork Talk with Jane Anson

12 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Author of Inside Bordeaux, Jane Anson started out as a journalist in Hong Kong but fell in love with wine on a trip to South Africa. She moved to Fran...

Cork Talk with David Way

05 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

David Way specialises in the wines of Piemonte, although he writes about the whole world for his day job at the Wine & Spirit Education Trust. A t...

Cork Talk with Debra Meiberg

28 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Debra Meiburg grew up in California, but moved to Hong Kong to work as an accountant in 1988. She quickly discovered that wine, not spreadsheets, was ...

Cork Talk with Vicente Cebrián

28 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Vicente Cebrián was born in Madrid, but says his blood is almost all Galician. Put in charge of two family bodegas – Pazo de Barrantes in Rías Bai...

Cork Talk with Nicole Rolet

14 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Brought up in a trilingual household in New York, Nicole Rolet worked in banking and international relations before she set up Chêne Bleu in the sout...

Cork Talk with Norrel Robertson

07 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Born in Dundee, close to what the calls “the Côte d’Or of raspberries”, Norrel Robertson got interested in wine through a part-time job at Oddb...

Cork Talk with Daniel Lambert

31 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After stints working at Sainsbury’s and in a Guildford nightclub, Daniel Lambert set up his own wine business in 1992 and has turned it into an awar...

Cork Talk with Anne Krebiehl

23 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Anne Kriebehl MW arrived in London to study English literature at university with two suitcases and a rucksack. After publishing her first piece about...

Cork Talk with Guiseppe Vaira

16 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Giuseppe Vaira is a second generation winemaker who thought of becoming a doctor but chose to join the business created by his pioneering father Aldo ...

Cork Talk with Andrew Caillard MW

10 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Auctioneer, author and film producer, Andrew Caillard MW has just published The Australian Ark, his magisterial, three-volume history of Australian Wi...

Cork Talk with Natalie Oliveros

02 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Born and brought up in New York, where she made wine with her father in the basement of their house as a kid, Natalie Oliveros had a very successful c...

Cork Talk with Jancis Robinson

25 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Jancis Robinson is the world’s leading wine writer, acknowledged as such by consumers, the wine industry and her peers. She has a weekly column in t...

Cork Talk with Katharina Prüm

19 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Prüms are one of the oldest wine families in Germany’s picturesque Middle Mosel region. The family business, J.J. Prüm, is now run by Katharin...

Cork Talk with François Lurton

12 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Part of an extensive, wine-focused family known in Bordeaux as “les Lurtons du vin”, François Lurton runs a successful global business that has e...

CorkTalk with Piero Incisa della Rocchetta

05 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Born into a famous winemaking family in Tuscany, Piero Incisa della Rocchetta had a brief spell as a banker in Geneva, before he dedicated himself to ...

Cork Talk with Piero Mastroberardino

28 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Poet, novelist, academic and tenth generation winery owner, Piero Mastroberardino is a modern-day Renaissance man. Passionate about the wines of his n...

Cork Talk with Tony Laithwaite

22 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Tony Laithwaite fell in love with wine in the Côtes de Castillon, where he’d gone to work as a holiday intern before university. Spotting a gap in ...

Cork Talk with Dominik Huber

15 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The locals laughed when Dominik Huber made his first wines at Terroir al Límit in Priorat, but he’s proved them all wrong. Born in Germany, it was ...

Cork Talk with Sara Danese

08 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Sara Danese is a financial consultant and investment analysis, who uses her experience and expertise to write about the fine wine world in her spare t...

Cork Talk with Robert Joseph

28 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Robert Joseph was one of the key figures in what he likes to call the “summer of love” for wine in the late 1980s, setting up Wine Magazine and th...