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IT WAS A TOUGH CALL but Ross Carter did it. The London International Wine Trade Fair out at ExCel in London’s Docklands was like a beached whale – flapping intermittently, gasping but essentially dying, beyond rescue.

Something needed to happen. Someone needed to grasp the nettle. Ross Carter had worked on the show beforehand, selling stand space.

He had gone to New Zealand for two years to get his hands dirty in vineyards (do they do dirt in squeaky clean New Zealand?). He worked in the vineyard at Pegasus Bay in Waipara, North Canterbury and then at Mudbrick (promotion: winery and vineyard) on Waiheke Island at the top of North Island.

Then he came back and got a job at PLB, initially in quality assurance and buying. Then the opportunity arose. James Murray, who had hitherto been running the ‘international’ wine fair for organiser Brintex, fell on his sword. A corkscrew is maybe more appropriate.

The decision to take the show from the much-loved, but often very sweaty and cramped Olympia, to the purpose-built ExCel, had been controversial. Sure enough, many sommeliers and others in the on-trade found it too far to travel between service.

Efforts to build the spirits element floundered as the big guns such as Diageo and Pernod Ricard weren’t tempted. Why go to all that expense, buying/building a stand, dragging people off the road and out of the office, when you can just build a website for Smirnoff or Absolut at the office and get people to visit that?

DEMANDING DISCOUNTS

As the UK wine sector floundered under the cosh of the multiple retailers demanding discounts, plus the economic downturn, so did the London International Wine Fair.

Murray and his team huffed and puffed but there was no way this floundering whale in Docklands was going to be refloated and resuscitated.

The call went out: ‘Get Carter’ (or words to that effect. Excuse me for using the title of an old Michael Caine film). The brief was simple: Back to basics. Back to Olympia. At its pomp, LIWF in 2008 as the economic downturn started to bite, was spread over approximately 23,000sq m, had 16,500 visitors and 1,000 exhibitors, of which 88 were UK-based.

Last year, back at Olympia, Carter says the 17,500sq m show had 14,000 visitors, including exhibitor personnel, but most importantly, of the 650 exhibitors, 150 were UK-based.

THE MAN REVEALED

So who is this man? Well the 38-year-old is married with a 14-month-old baby boy, Albie, and lives in south Oxfordshire, near Henley. He studied modern languages at University of London and is keen for it to be noted that he recently got his WSET Diploma. Quite right too.

He is fluent in Spanish and French as he only returned to the UK when he was 18. His parents moved to Spain– Majorca actually – in the early 1970s to redevelop a finca, a Spanish estate, with a view to providing a holiday home and running courses. When he was 16, they moved to France and young Carter went to school in Bordeaux. Ah, now we’re getting warm.

“My parents were both into wine and, like so many kids (in traditional wine-producing countries), I was started on the juice by mixing with water,” he says.

“My father suggested the wine trade on the basis that: ‘In a recession, everyone keeps drinking wine.’ That was his logic.” Carter pauses and coughs.

He did a basic WSET course and started in trade publishing on the fresh produce side. In 2007 he joined Brintex as a sales manager. Carter says: “What I love about wine is that there are so many subjects covered by it. Geography, geology, chemistry, horticulture.” He adds: “I’m a bit of a jack-of-all-trades.”

Asked what his hobbies are, Carter replies: “I like brewing beer. I like American pale ales, bitter stouts, IPAs.”

There’s a pause as he decides whether to reveal it. “I frame pictures…” Explain. “I’d come back from travelling with boxes of things I wanted to frame. So, I went on a course and have probably saved thousands of pounds. I had postcards from Vietnam. It would have cost a hundred times more than they are worth to frame them. I have a certificate of authenticity for Cuban cigars which I framed.”

ON THE AGENDA

What else would he like to do? “See more of India. I find it fascinating and captivating and the people are so genuine. I’m not superstitious so I don’t believe in luck. Things have turned out to my satisfaction so far.”

What about dislikes? “What I dislike is being asked to choose the wine by all my friends every time we go out and then getting comments when they’re dissatisfied,” he says, slightly huffily.

As to what he would like to change, Carter says: “The wine trade is well established and sizeable but it lacks modernity. We need to embrace the digital age. There are so many things to know about with wine, so many products, so much information.” Which prompts a plug for the show’s latest development – its link -up with Bottlebooks.

Carter also feels that, while the UK is a mature market for wine – “the second largest wine market in the world” (another plug for the UK and the importance of the show) – he believes there is an “immature appreciation of wine based on the (low) price point”.

Carter rejoices in the sheer breadth of choice for UK consumers, yet his frustration is their obsession with price, as in the cheapest or most discounted.

But he feels that other countries still look to the UK as the “litmus test” for success. Although LWF has dropped the ‘I’, as in ‘international’, it still gets visitors from abroad. Scandinavia in particular – which accounts for 13% of foreign visitors, in fact.

So, as politicians vie over whether the UK is going to leave the EU or not, maybe they should consult with Ross Carter, should the Brexit xenophobes get it.

THE LONDON WINE FAIR

Dates

Tuesday May 3 to Thursday May 5

Venue

Kensington Olympia, Hammersmith Road, Kensington, London W14 8UX