About Us
Wine Owners is an online wine collection management platform and trading community for people who love and collect fine wine.
It brings together everything to organise, value and track a fine wine collection:
- a vast database of fine wine with a wealth of information
- pricing for current market valuations and 10-year price history
- direct market access via a dynamic fine wine marketplace that makes it simple and cost-effective to sell your wine yourself, or to buy from other wine collectors.
In short, Wine Owners provides everything a wine lover will ever need to organise, track and value a wine collection, and gives participants total control over buying and selling.
If you are a wine retailer, merchant, importer or a wine warehouse looking for software solution to run your business, click here.Who is it for?
Wine lovers
Collectors
Buyers
Sellers
Wine professionals
Restaurants and Ontrade
Key facts
26,000 users
19 countries
$2bn of fine wine catalogued, tracked and valued
400,000+ referential wine entries
90-100 million prices collected annually
32,000 unique wine names
Multi-millions of offers for sale and bids to buy
Our team
Founders
Nick Martin
Founder. An investor in data-led digital ventures. Previously MD of a global marketing services business within Reed Elsevier (15 years) before leading the European information business of a Fortune 500 technology firm. More importantly he is a passionate wine enthusiast and long-term collector.
Wolter Visscher
Co-founder & CTO. A Dutch national who started out at Shell, Wolter founded a bespoke software & database development company, which he sold to a 3i backed company, acting as Divisional Director of the new parent. Wolter has a strong track record of building and delivering technology-based businesses.
Trading desk
Luke MacWilliam
5 years in the Wine Trade, most recently managing a well known retail outlet in Belgravia before making the switch to the Wine Owners trading desk. A love for the old and the new, bad puns and sport, and ticking off global wine regions one by one.
Josh Hawes
Josh has been in the wine trade for a decade, mostly working out in Hong Kong with a few different companies during that time, including his own small trading and e-commerce business; and always focused on the private buyer, collector, consumer and general wine lover. Josh is WSET Level 3 qualified.
Customer services & Logistics
Victoria Newton
Client Services and Logistics. A classical music graduate, Victoria found herself first in the wine industry in 2014. Having dabbled in the on and off trade, she joined us from a premium spirits importer looking to further her knowledge and career in fine wine investment. A champagne lover with a soft spot for all things Chardonnay!
Marketing
Clotilde Muller
Head of Marketing. Clotilde has an MBA in Marketing and Management from the Superior Institute of Commerce in Paris, and previously studied Economics and Finance. When not at work, Clotilde is part of a non-profit, and loves sports and art.
Tech team
Jonathan Picchi
Data Manager. A French national and Masters graduate from France's National School for Statistics and Information Analysis, with previous experience at railway operator SNCF and a stint with a New York hedge fund. Interests include the Chinese strategy board game 'Go' and badminton.
Markus Burgmann
Software development. An Austrian national and Bachelor graduate for Business and Information Science. Founder of a bespoke software firm whose clients included DHL, H-Metall, CNH and FCA. Software development at Wine Owners since 2012. Interests include music, cooking and running.
Jan Fitl
CMS & Technical Consultant. A Czech national, studied Digital Tele-Communication Technology before coming to the UK. Jan previously worked as a Head Sommelier at Alyn Williams at The Westbury Hotel and was in charge of the wine cellar and back of house operation at 67 Pall Mall for 4 years before joining Wine Owners.
Accounting
Fabian Cobb
Fabian began at accountancy firm Coopers & Lybrand, was launch Publisher and Editor in Chief of The World of Fine Wine with Hugh Johnson and has deep expertise in wine auction data.
Our Advisory Board
The Wine Owners Advisory Board is comprised of leaders in their respective fields drawn from the worlds of financial services, legal services, sales and marketing and wine.
We are fortunate and very grateful to rely upon their wise counsel, not to mention their combined experience, vision and good judgement.
Simon Farr
Entrepreneur with 40 years in the wine business, and Co-Founder of Bibendum in 1979, from which he successfully exited via a trade sale in 2016. Other directorships: Argento Wine Co; Malagas Wine Co (Sijnn Winery); Cru Asset Management; St Andrews Wine Co; Oeno Limited.
Anthony Thomson
Founder & Chairman of Atom - a mobile only bank using state of the art technologies to deliver customer service. Founder & Former Chairman of Metro Bank plc, the first new UK high street retail bank in over 100 years; Co-Founder and Chairman of The Financial Services Forum; visiting Professor at London Metropolitan University Business School; panelist for Sky News and The ITV Business Club.
Malcolm Thwaites
Investment banking veteran who started at Morgan Grenfell before moving to Deutche Bank upon acquisition. He served as the Co-Head of investment banking whilst at Merrill Lynch in Germany and then led Lazard's German banking business. Malcolm is now retired from financial services, allowing him more time to pursue his passion for fine wine appreciation.
Leon Ferera
A Partner at law firm Jones Day, a specialist in domestic and cross-border M&A and private equity transactions, joint ventures, and securities issues. While at the Takeover Panel he was responsible for regulating many takeovers of U.K. public companies and was secretary to the Code Committee.
Stan Metheny
Long-serving CVP at New York Life for 32 years, from 1979 through until 2011, specialized in Ultra High Net Worth clients. Stan is a passionate discoverer of wine, travels regularly in pursuit of the greatest undiscovered producers and runs one of the most exclusive tasting and dinner groups on Wall Street. For the past 12 years he has also been 1st VP of the American Friends of Westminster Cathedral and is an authority on Gregorian chant.
Ian Baynes
Ian is a sales and marketing business leader with 20 years experience in the high-tech, retail, FMCG, gaming & casino markets globally; and an expert in delivering high-value, complex solutions. His track record includes Listed enterprises (IGT & Acxiom), privately owned firms (Atex & TMI) and start-ups (BDR, Traackr). Ian is a Post Graduate in Marketing and is a Fellow of the Institute of Sales & Marketing Management and an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
François Chirumberro
François is a seasoned strategy consultant with Boston Consulting Group in London. He took a four-year break in 2014 to create Eighty-two, a fine wine advisory company he founded with Alexandre de Rothschild, which they subsequently sold to Legrand & Co group. After the exit Francois decided to go back to BCG. Prior to BCG François worked for Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin. François holds a degree in winemaking from Bordeaux University as well as an MBA from Columbia Business School.
Morgan Johnson
A London School of Economics graduate, Morgan spent 10 years in finance, firstly in sales and trading at investment bank JP Morgan, then as a hedge fund trader at Marshall Wace and Och Ziff. A keen sportsman, he's represented both Wales and Saracens at Rugby.
