Affectionately known as Le Grand Fromage. An all-action rugby player until his knees (and various other parts) gave out, Eric moved to England in the 1980s, taking up the cause of natural wines from his homeland with typically Occitan flair. Now dividing his time between London and Sicily (making wine on the slopes of Mount Etna with partner Anna Martens and their two sons), he is very much the spirit and guiding light of Les Caves de Pyrene, its presiding palate and ideas guru.

The voice of reason. Amy’s efficiency and super-powers of organisation have propelled her speedily through the ranks at Les Caves de Pyrene. Since becoming operations manager in 2013, she has been the very glue of the company - involved in every aspect of organisation and corporate strategy. In 2015 Amy was appointed managing director - despite the gravitas that the position confers she is still the partiest animal in the Les Caves menagerie.

Former sommelier Doug was an early recruit to Eric’s merry band and is author to the epic tome that is the Les Caves' wine list. Having whipped the sales team into shape & passed his Sales Director hat over to the polished head of David Canadas, Doug now heads up buying in several foreign fields – namely the U.S, Austria, Slovenia & Croatia – where he has already sourced a wealth of new material. His appearances at the office are so infrequent that he is reputed to be a mythical creature and for this reason has acquired his folkloric sobriquet, Sir Wregg.

As Philippe can testify, it is dangerous to get drunk with Eric because you may find the King's Shilling at the bottom of your glass. Our senior French wine buyer looks after some pretty groovy accounts in London, where he will often take a "quick bite of lunch". For three hours. Monsieur Lubac has accumulated a formidable personal cellar over the years (or, as we call it, Grand Cru Cooking Burgundy), his knowledge of the wines of the Rhone valley is encyclopaedic and he never wears the same tasteful designer t-shirt twice.

David is one of a long line of members of staff hewn from the Oddbins block and our expert on all things Iberian. He was born in Madrid but raised in Letchworth, somehow emerging from this reversal of fortunes with humour and grace intact. Having resolutely put Spain on the map for Les Caves de Pyrene, he has now also taken on the mantel of Sales Director and puts our motley rabble of reps through their paces daily, as he continues his quest to teach the world to love and respect sherry.

Half-French and half-Italian (Fritalian?), Didier wears two colourful Mediterranean hats - but not at the same time. He first encountered Les Caves whilst working behind the bar at Cellar Gascon in Smithfield, where the Pacherenc flowed unpronounceably alongside the gateau basque. He started at Les Caves on the phones (as we say) before eventually donning the shoe leather as a sales rep. A key member now of the sales and management team, Didier also shares responsibility for buying the wines of his mother-and-father-lands.

After graduating from Bristol University, by way of Oddbins, erudite Will crossed paths with a certain Mr Scholes when serving him a Guinness (what else?) at a local pub and was persuaded that he would be better off at a certain company up the road... He has embraced the challenge magnificently, and may often be spotted wistfully swirling a glass of something cloudy as he makes his rounds, accosting anyone prepared to listen to his ramblings on carbonic maceration and the judicious use of sulphur.

24/7 party animal Carlo has more nicknames than any one at Les Caves. Lupo. Bello. Bello Lupo. And Lupo Bello. (We’re not very imaginative). A native of Puglia, and a talented former-sommelier, Lupo has a fearsomely good palate and can spot cork taint before the bottle is even opened. He brings colourful emotion to the monochromatic world of wine-selling and has many devoted customers to whom he is also devoted and can be observed of an evening carousing in all of Hackney’s brightest and beautiful watering-holes.

AKA Boardie. Yes, we’re that good with nicknames. James patrols the southern borders of our sales empire, seeking to educate the natives in the ways of the natural force (thereby needing the patience of a small green Jedi). Recently, James has been blessed by fatherhood. The twins should keep him out of mischief for the next eighteen years. One of life’s natural athletes, James is a mean footballer and can whack a golf ball with alacrity miles into the fynbos in the Bot River region.

Inveigled to join Les Caves many moons ago when he was the buyer for Villandry restaurant, rugby-dad Gid manages only behemoth accounts - with the odd gargantuan one. All the world’s his spreadsheet; he loves marshalling his armies of statistics. He buttonholes our buyers with requests for wines that we’ve never heard of (decent Prosecco rose, decent Pinot Grigio rose…). No blush Zin so far... A danger to the Atlantic pulpo population he’s racked up more trips to Galicia than the rest of the company put together.

No serious party in South London is worth its salt without a visitation by the TT. Former general manager of the Lindsay House in Soho our own Mr Congeniality has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the late night/early morning watering holes in London. When he isn’t selling his reproduction French(y) furniture for an armchair or a table leg TT consorts with the upper echelons of the French restaurant, ahem,… rhymes with rafia.

Andrea Ash… Ask… represents Les Caves de Pyrene north of the Watford Gap. In the north of our scepter’d isle they are want to call a spade a spade and Pinot Grigio wine, but Andrea is slowly civilising the indigenous populations and hawking wines other than barely fizzy Prosecco by the keg. Our Andrea likes a riff on a stiff quiff and comes to each sales meeting modelling a different hair gel and is known to pack the entire contents of his bathroom cupboard for brief trips abroad.

Onetime art historian, Bryanna, previously managed international sales for Oregonian winery, Sokol B, with a spell in Montenegro (where else?!) purporting the virtues of natural wine; we’re told she had more luck smuggling street dogs across the Slovenian border for adoption by loving German families. Spare time comprises fanatically checking out library books (save the libraries!), long walks, and art lectures. Lifetime ambitions vary wildly in attainability, from visiting Benidorm to acquiring immortality. Wine-wise Bryanna rightly believes that Alice et Olivier De Moor can do no wrong.

Champion of bizarre baguette fillings, Josh always fancied himself as a thespian; instead he’s treading the boards with the Les Caves Troup! Scouted by Southampton FC as a youth he’s not bad at footy either, while repose is spent taking in the American Literature of the early-20th Century. Rumoured to have successfully avoided eating fruit since 2004, Josh believes its most judicious use is the fermentation of its juice, and more specifically represented by Bornard’s Ploussard Point Barre.

Nacho – aka Don Nacho – only took to liking Tequila after moving to London from Guadalajara. The geographical irony isn’t lost on Nacho, he puts his recently found love of distilled (blue) agave down to the taste of home it offers. In what seems like a lifetime ago, Nacho once earned his salt as a web developer, but after years in hospitality - most recently in the senior wine team at Hawksmoor – he now enjoys preaching the virtues of Sherry to anyone who’ll listen, and that’s *fino* by us. In his spare time, Nacho is a voracious consumer of crime novels and 80s Sci-Fi – write a whodunit set in a galaxy far, far away, he’ll read it – he also sincerely believes Riesling to be the noblest of noble varietals.

Happy-go-lucky Lucchese, Riccardo, joins our Sales Team having tried everything from butchery to stage managing a theatre. Perhaps the most influential hospitality stint was his time at the late, great Terroirs, Trafalgar Sq. His interests are no less diverse. A keen music lover and embracer of the arts, Riccardo is also increasingly prone to wanderlust. Wine-wise he loves Chenin Blanc’s versatility and anything on the Glou Glou spectrum.

Kevin started out in kitchens before becoming a sommelier with stints at both Le Manoir and the much loved, much missed Terroirs Central. Alongside peddling our wine wares, the effervescent Mr Barbry makes jolly good Pét-Nat from Kentish grapes having learnt the fundaments at Vignes du Maynes and Tillingham. Outside of work, his passions are rugby, cycling and heavy metal bands, his quest is to somehow combine all three.

Our Dario is a mash up of Sardinian and German genes. Pick the Riesling bones out of that Cannonau. Famed for his encyclopaedic knowledge of Italian DOCs and DOCGs, his regional wine maps are a thing of beauty and his customer trips to the land of the boot are planned with military precision, guaranteed to result in shock and awe. Having previously extolled (at length) the virtues of natural wine London-wide Dario will now be setting his co-ordinates further afield, ensuring natural wine finds its way to, as yet, uncharted territory.

Nini first arrived at Les Caves stashed between cases in a pallet of Vouvray shipped over from her parents’ estate. After a mammoth stint, spanning the best part of a decade, heading up our shop in Pew Corner, alongside juggling Ex-Cellars, Nini will now be solely focusing on the latter. Her penchant for “les bulles” is renowned and that certain sparkle is prevalent in almost everything she does.

With the Mission Impossible theme playing in the background our Elena P pilots the supertanker that is the CdP shipping department. She is the multi-tasking polyglot’s polyglot conversing at a million miles an hour with our growers across the planet. She’s thoroughly familiarised herself with the arcane procedures of groupage, shipping procedures, types of containers – an education in itself. Cracking the whip (in the nicest possible way) Elena ensures that we receive wines from the farthest shores of manana-shire (except Crete).

Another of our resident polyglots Laura can converse in French, Spanish with a little Italian. Her language degree led initially to a career selling book rights (her proudest claim is to have sold books on French cheese to the French). Dealing with three children under the age of 3 has given her experience in time management and diplomacy, useful for working in our busy shipping department! Laura’s not averse to wine with bubbles (Champalou Brut a fave tipple, Gerbais if you’re paying), otherwise prefers to sup the light ‘n’ fruity stuff.

Charles “Mr” Porter used to drive one of our battered old vans in the days of waybackwhen delivering Gascon goodies to the local French bistros and pubs. Now he sits in the shipping lane despatching orders all o’er and wrestling with the linguistic linguine of unpronounceable cuvées and growers’ names. A keen cyclist our Mr Porter has also been known to take to the high seas (or the Solent) in a yacht, trying to avoid the shipping lanes!

Signor Jackson (told you our nicknames were imaginative) is our shipping magnet (boom-boom) and pores over the ancient runes (and ruins) of our stock sheets. Tipple-wise he’s not averse to the Pinot-ier things in life - Gevrey-Chambertin goes down well apparently. His other knotted handkerchief is as a DJ extraordinaire, and he’s wont to wax lyrical on the esoterica of mixing desks and whatnot. His fave rave destinations include Thailand and Cambodia and a certain wine bar in Barcelona.

Banjo-playing, bird-watching mathematician (what are the odds of that??) James has brought his eternally cheerful outlook and disarming enthusiasm to Les Caves. Since joining (a fair few moons ago) James has developed a truly eclectic palate. While harbouring a soft spot for the classical Chateauneufs of Barroche, he especially enjoys challenging the taste buds of his former colleagues with wines such as skin-contact Rkatsiteli – bravo!

Mirela joins us having taken a circuitous route to the world of wine (isn’t it always thus!). Having graduated from University in Bucharest Mirela worked in banking and real estate, before hopping aboard (quite literally) the hospitality boat. Stints in sunny Sicilia and on cruise ships preceded the less sunny Surrey vistas. In her spare time Mirela loves cooking and planning her next travel adventure. Wine-wise Mirela enjoys Italian reds, chiefly the Barolos of Principiano and Foradori’s terrific Teroldego.

A love of languages led Giulia to swap sun-drenched Sicily for soggy Surrey. Remarkably this hasn’t dimmed a perpetually sunny disposition, Giulia parleys ebulliently with our motley crew of winemakers. In her spare time she enjoys all things outdoorsy and is most at home by the sea with a pair of snorkels. We’re told cooking up a storm comes a close second. Giulia’s favourite wines are those that adorned the family table back home, she’s also partial to the occasional craft beer too.

Skilful linguist Vanessa is often given the unenviable task of contacting our more hermetic growers to prise info out of them. An essential part of the Real Wine Fair organising team, she’s goddess of the spreadsheets and has perforce had to immerse herself in any sort of organisation and logistics. Known as Audrey Hepburn (the eyes have it!) Ness loves anything artsy-crafty from jewellery making to pottery. She loves discovering new interesting wines – Patrick Sullivan's Haggis is a particular favourite!

Self-confessed wordsmith and book-worm, Elliott works his cheeky charm with the punters. His jocular reputation has resulted in a ‘pun jar’ being installed to curb the constant flow of witticisms. From Hemingway to Harper Lee (what - both books??), there’s not much he hasn’t read and although book and wine matching has yet to go mainstream, the Foillard Morgon Côte du Py is a good place to start we’re told!

Karen previously worked for a small architect firm in Venezuela before moving to the UK with her family. She now puts her administrative savvy and linguistic skills to vital use, cajoling info for our Spanish and South American wines – growers be warned, ‘mañana’ no longer cuts the mustard! A keen believer in the wholesome way of life, for Karen, good food and plenty of yoga are essentials. Eager to learn about the world of natural wine Karen has taken a liking to our Beaujolais (nouveau et al).

Ben joined Les Caves at a tender age upon graduating from Plumpton College. He heads up the crack team on our sales desk, doing his utmost to keep our customers happy and their glasses full. Ben sports a bewildering array of eclectic tastes in film, music and literature, and is a gung-ho adventurer, liable to take himself off to some of the less hospitable corners of the globe - including North Korea and Eastern Ukraine. Being no stranger to danger he should be right at home with volatile natural wines.

Pete is cool as a cucumber when it comes to meeting the needs of our on-trade customers. Another convert from the Majestic stable, he was first introduced to the portfolio with some of our skin-contact Georgian offerings, although he still has a soft spot for a “big” Chardonnay every now and then. A history-loving wanderlust with plenty of stories to tell (ask him about being mistaken for Michael Owen on the Argentinian/Chilean border by customs officials). A lot has also been mentioned of his singing ability of 90’s pop classics, so a karaoke evening will be arranged to see if the rumours are true!

Emiliya is another Majestic grad who’s opted for the more natural climes (and wines) of Les Caves. It seems there’s something about the sales desk which attracts "creative-types" and Emiliya firmly fits that mould. Before a love of wine blossomed, it was the stage where Emiliya played out her days, with two years spent in a Bulgarian theatre company. Aside from acting Emiliya enjoys gardening, photography, and reading (William Blake, what else?!). Vinous interests include big Cali reds and, if a lighter touch is in order, a glass (or so) of Albariño on a hot summer’s day is a firm fave.

Jack, a.k.a. ‘Crooky’, was set to become an aircraft maintenance engineer before a love of wine took him down a different path, beginning in the M&S wine department and continuing on Les Caves’ bustling Sales Desk. Apparently Crooky still partakes in the occasional aeronautical activity, having had lessons in gliding, a skydive or bungee jump is next on the bucket list. Time on terra firma includes fierce support for his beloved Crystal Palace F.C. and exploring our Georgian list. If it isn’t wine, it’s a nice pint of real ale!

Seasoned ski seasoner, Katy, joins us after seven years (in Tibet?!) of slaloming, first in St. Anton (AT) then Banff (CA), home to the Rocky Mountains, bears and the world’s largest big bottle collection. Here at Les Caves the altogether less altitudinous Pew Corner boasts offices for the UK’s largest importer of natural wines… A student of History, Katy’s claim to fame is that her uncle’s godfather was the late Olav V, King of Norway. An ardent herbal tea steeper, when something stronger is called for Katy returns to onetime home Austria with the wines of Judith Beck.

When part-time dogsitter, Imi, isn’t walking her Cavapoos Paddy and Winnie, she’s probably watching some sport – cricket or ruggers – whilst dreaming up her next trip overseas. So far, jaunts to South Africa and St. Lucia top the charts with a 30-hour coach ride to Croatia scoring nil pois. Her laudable installation of a communal snack jar at her desk has secured her status as ‘a much loved colleague’. Yet another member of the Weingut Judith Beck Fan Club, when it isn’t wine it’s a cocktail, preferably a passionfruit mojito!

Our Financial Controller is also our resident petrol head having come to us from the whizzy world of GP2 Racing. Two bambinos have put a gentle brake on the days of shopping and socialising in London; she now spends weekends looking for the best soft play locations in Surrey. Preferred tipple? Laurent Perrier Rose. Not gin! (Don’t ask). Tasha’s claim to fame is to get LCDP collectively hurled out of a pub in the middle of Spain after deciding that the service would be swifter if she was administering the drinks!

Our erstwhile flashmobber may be found at weekends supping the bubbly stuff or zumbaring her way around the local town centre. There’s a sentence you don’t read every day! Yvonne has been part of the CDP family for many years, and deals with all of our supplier & producer invoices, payments, expenses and many other things... the list is endless!

Zoe hails from Aldershot and is an avid supporter of Aldershot Town FC. When she isn’t sipping on a G&T – with lime – not cucumber, she can be found in our accounts department where she acts as Purchase Ledger Assistant. She likes wine (particularly the Henry Marionnet, Touraine Gamay Charmoise), but not quite as much as a good G&T. When not training hard in the gym, which she does twice a week, she is also partial to a karaoke session and loves to steal the mic from unsuspecting DJs.

Adam joined Les Caves after a somewhat ill-fated attempt at taking part in a well-known reality show. Luckily for him, his plan B led him into our midst as Credit Controller. When he isn’t number crunching, he’s likely to be found enjoying a stiff drink of Kraken with his family or taking part in a murder mystery party. He is particularly keen on superheroes, particularly Superman and likes to adopt mistreated cats.

Before you ask, the latest member of our Credit Control corps has no affiliations with Harvey Nichols. She is, however, a huge fan of Harry Potter and swimming. We’ve been racking our brains as to how the two could be combined and had a few ideas, mainly involving gillyweed. We were tremendously impressed to hear that Hayley has swum the English Channel virtually, undertaking the 22-mile swim over the course of 24 days, at her local pool. Thirsty work indeed. Talking of tipples, Hayley’s “poison” is an ice-cold Archers and lemonade.

Tim ‘The Peytonator’ Peyton cut his teeth at a wine merchant in hometown, Bath, before an eight-year stint managing a small chain of West London bottle shops. An eclectic music lover, Tim has a penchant for obscure indie bands and electronic music. Record collecting and amateur DJing are his jam. Tim even dabbled in freelance music journalism, and still dusts off the old quill from time to time. Apparently, he “is often the last person standing at a party” – we will of course be fact-checking this audacious claim at our next company soirée at which he’ll likely be seeking out Gamay, Northern Rhône Syrah, or anything with a volcanic or mineral edge.

Pete originally joined Les Caves as a van driver, leaving the warehouse at some godforsaken hour in order to get the wine to our thirsty customer on time. Since then he has taken on the mantle of Warehouse Manager at Pew Corner, and spends most of his time behind the scenes finding ever-ingenious new ways to cram in bottles from our ever-expanding range into every last nook and cranny available. Pete is a master raconteur and never short of an anecdote, whether required or not.

Joining the company not long after Pete, Anthony has been and remains one of our most valuable secret weapons. He is always at the ready to come to the rescue and only he can navigate across London in his red van quite as efficiently as he does. When not out on deliveries, Anthony spends his time assisting his colleagues in the shop at Pew Corner (aka smashing bottles). Anthony also heads up the catering department at shop tastings, and the bacon sarnies he lays on at our annual stock take are the stuff of legend.