Very shocked and saddened to hear that Tim Stanley Clarke, one of the great characters of the UK wine trade and great Port lover and expert, died last night. Tim had a great sense of humour and enjoyed jolly japes. On a personal level he was very supportive of my exposure of wine investment frauds.
I have fond recollections of a memorable trip with Tim to visit Bouchard Père et Fils following its takeover by Henriot. We flew back from Dijon and it was some time before the ban on taking liquids on planes. Since our flight departed around lunchtime Tim had bought various patés etc plus at least two bottles of Bouchard Burgundy – a well chilled white and a red plus glasses – allowing us to have a very enjoyable lunch at the back of the plane!
Here are a series of photos I took of Tim at the Circle of Wine Writers' Christmas Party in December 2013 hosted by Swiss Wine. I hope they capture some of the essence of TSC.
Tim's bio on Linkedin
News report in The Drinks Business.
We will certainly miss you Tim!
7th July – funeral arrangements: Tim's funeral will be at 2pm on Thursday 27th July at Blythburgh Church in Suffolk (also known as 'the Cathedral on the Marshes'). There should be extra parking but advice is to get there in reasonable time as it could be a packed house.
I met him at 2 Wine Society tastings in 1990s. I had been CO of 120 Squadron RAF. Tim's father had been 120s first CO in 1918 as an ex Army officer with an MC before becoming an RFC pilot. Tim repeated a many things his father had told him about 120s early days we never knew. Hid father was about 27 in 1918 but amazingly Tim was not born until 1947 when father was in his late 50s and I now know had remarried.
ReplyDeleteTim was such fun and so welcoming to me and wife as complete strangers I and we were so sorry to read of his death on The Times recently.