"We will always seek out handcrafted products that are made by people, by families, that have the greatest quality at every price point. That will always be the ethos of who we are.” – Oren Simon

Smooth transitions are crucial to sustaining a family business. Across our portfolio, we champion estates passed on from generation to generation. They last because their work is not just what they do—it’s who they are. They know that the vines they tend will produce the finest wines long after they’re gone, and they seem to feel a stronger sense of duty and satisfaction in what they do for the next generation than what they can reap for themselves today.

For Episode 39, Harmon Skurnik sits down with his son David, the new president of Skurnik Wines & Spirits, and Oren Simon, the new CEO, to celebrate the first transition of executive leadership in our 39 years of representing the most remarkable winemakers, distillers, and specialty beverage makers from around the world.

Topics covered in this episode:

• The advantages of a robust family business
• The key to good service and hospitality
• What we do that other distributors don’t
• How we hire and choose who to represent
• Why authentic products succeed in down times
• What to expect from this new generation of leadership

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"It's really exciting to be a part of this new industry that's learning at a rapid pace—and watch out, because there are so many people coming who are making really exciting wines. But what sets Wiston apart is the fact that we're family-owned. We're here to learn and understand and make quality sparkling wine." – Marcus Rayner-Ward

Though the increasing prevalence of English wine might feel like a novel side effect of the day's changing climate, Vitis vinifera first took root in the British Isles in the year 43 AD; wherever ancient Romans went, so went wine. Since then, the motivations behind British viticulture have ebbed and flowed from the necessary to the eccentric to the nostalgic.

Today, it's rather sensible. A warmer climate helps grapes ripen, and the same chalk that defines Champagne runs under the English Channel and reappears in the South Downs, where the Goring family (re)planted Wiston Estate. It's here that you'll find lively sparkling wines with verve and quintessentially English notes of citrus peel and green apple.

This week's guest is Marcus Rayner-Ward, the estate's head winemaker since 2022. In this episode, he fills in the historical context often left out of the discussion on English wine and tastes through the estate's three core wines that deliver, in his words, "England in a glass.”

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"Massaya means twilight. It's 'el masa.' When you are walking in the street in a village in Lebanon or in Beirut, you say 'masa el-kher,' evening of grace, good wishes, to a passing by person." – Sami Ghosn

The story of Lebanese wine is a story of perpetual revival. One of the oldest wine regions in the world, this well-protected and resource-rich section of the Levant has been producing and trading wine for millennia—as a global currency by the Phoenicians, in secret by persecuted Christians under Ottoman rule, and in spite of violent times today.

Sami Ghosn relies on his ancestors to sustain his beloved culture. After fleeing the outbreak of civil war in 1975, he returned to the Beqaa Valley in the early 1990s where he started distilling arak and selling it from his parents' pharmacy. Eventually, he and his brother founded the iconic Massaya estate, which helped propel the latest chapter of Lebanese wine revival.

In this week's episode, Sami supplements a lineup of his wines with the estate's arak, and tidbits of forgotten history and memorable encounters with Anthony Bourdain and the former prime minister of Lebanon.

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