Tom Gilbey on simplifying wine, the best chicken pie, and working with family

·50 min·4 clips

Tom Gilbey reveals why a young sommelier's bravery can transform your restaurant wine experience.

Wine gets treated too seriously. Tom Gilbey's antidote is blunt and funny: it is fermented grape juice, and it should probably make people laugh. That tone gives the conversation its ease. The host nudges and listens while Gilbey tells stories about restaurants, growers, and the habits that keep people buying the same bottle over and over. He wants more bravery in restaurants, but not the show-off kind. His perfect wine moment is a young sommelier who hears the budget, brings something unfamiliar, and takes it back if it misses. Thirsty stays in the background without turning the chat into a book pitch. It gives Gilbey a reason to talk about growers he knows, bottles chosen through old relationships, and the unglamorous work behind a good list. The supermarket part is the most useful. Repetition feels safe. Gilbey makes variety sound easy enough to try: take Merlot to South Africa, then France, or pick one country and wander through its grapes. Even when he grumbles about sweeter supermarket styles, he sounds practical rather than smug. A wine club idea slips in too. Three bottles once a month, maybe with a chef matching a recipe to one, feels like a friendly nudge out of the usual aisle. The episode works because Gilbey keeps pulling wine down from the shelf. It is less exam, more excuse to notice what tastes good.

As heard by us

Tom Gilbey makes wine feel less precious, more useful, and much easier to bring to the table.

Wine, in Tom Gilbey's hands, is less a status object than something to put on the table and enjoy. With Samuel Goldsmith, he makes a warm case for drinking a little more bravely: trust a good sommelier, say what you want to spend, and stop treating the same supermarket bottle as…

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Tom Gilbey makes wine feel less like a test and more like a relaxed conversation.

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