Meet the Team

Graham Holter, Editor and Publisher (01323 871836)

Graham set up The Wine Merchant magazine in 2012. He’s an award-winning journalist (aren’t they all?) who edited Off Licence News for six years and also had stints on The Morning Advertiser and Wine & Spirit. As a freelance writer he contributed to most of the main drinks trade publications in the UK, and several overseas, and has also written for The Guardian and The Times. He’s a Brighton & Hove Albion season ticket holder who enjoys collecting driftwood and keeping pointless lists of the wildlife he encounters.

Claire Harries, Assistant Editor (01323 871836)

Claire joined the team in 2015 and probably writes more of the magazine than anyone else, though she has yet to realise this. She also co-ordinates the various reader trips and events that the magazine organises throughout the year. She’s worked as a journalist on a range of glossy consumer magazines and has lots of anecdotes about the rich and famous, many of them actionable.

Naomi Young, Accounts (01323 871836)

Every so often we find it necessary to invoice people and Naomi is the person we turn to on these occasions. She joined us in 2014, at a time when our spreadsheets were nearing Bletchley Park levels of complication, but she has tamed them. Naomi is widely travelled, and lived in California for a while. We live in constant dread that she might do so again.

Sarah Hunnisett, Advertising Manager 

Joining us in 2020, Sarah is an experienced sales professional who for many years was an integral part of the team at Viva, a much-loved magazine based in Sussex. She’s no stranger to the world of wine – for a while, one of her sidelines was a personalised label business. She lives in the countryside with her young family and is a keen gardener and amateur painter.

Nigel Huddleston, Contributing Writer

Nigel is also an award-winning freelance journalist and former Off Licence News editor with an encyclopaedic knowledge of drinks, and the people who produce and sell them. You’ll find his work in every edition of The Wine Merchant, and we particularly value his expertise in the spirits and beer categories. Nigel is a devoted Nottingham Forest supporter who is trying to find the time to finish a book which was supposed to be about Public Image Ltd but may now be about something else.

David Williams, Columnist and Contributor

David is one of the UK’s most talented wine writers. His career began on Harpers, and he then joined Wine & Spirit where he worked with Graham Holter and subsequently took over as editor. He is now wine critic for The Observer, and is deputy editor of The World of Fine Wine. He writes the Just Williams column for The Wine Merchant and most of our wine features. He is also competition director of The Wine Merchant Top 100. He divides his time between the UK and his home in Catalonia, where he writes investigative poetry.

Charlotte Gingell, Administrator

Charlotte joined the team in the spring of 2021 and is the person you’re most likely to hear from whenever we’re putting together buying trips, arranging round tables or recruiting indies for Zoom events. Fond of Catalonian food, gymnastics and nursing badly-treated orchids back to health, Charlotte has a fascination for all things medieval and in fact composes all her emails in Middle English, which are then automatically translated into modern-day language by a special app.