The team
Hywel buys everything and drives the van on Tuesdays. Anwen runs the shop, the tastings and the notes.
Owner and buyer
Hywel taught chemistry in Newport for eighteen years and ran wine evenings at the staff club before they became more popular than the staff. He took on the lease at 7 Monnow Street in 2009, mainly because of the cellar. He buys everything, drives the van on Tuesdays, and has opinions about Muscadet which he will share at any time.
Shop and tastings
Anwen grew up on a farm at Rockfield, did a vintage in the Languedoc in her twenties and came home with her wine diploma and a good ear for what people are really asking. She runs the shop day to day, writes the notes for every mixed case and leads most of the first Friday tastings. She is the person to ask if you want something that is not like everything else.
The cellar
The vaulted cellar under 7 Monnow Street is older than the Georgian front, and it stays at about the same temperature all year. For most of the twentieth century it held coal and bottled beer. Hywel saw it in 2009, on a viewing for something else entirely, and he signed the lease within a week.
The older bottles live down there now, along with the long table where the first Friday tastings happen.
Or build a mixed case and take ten per cent off, delivered free within ten miles of Monmouth. Over 18s only; we operate Challenge 25. Please drink responsibly.