When I first thought about writing this article, I wasn’t sure what my hook would be. The obvious choice would be to talk about why I’ve become a member of Slow Food or what makes me think my wines are suited to a world of ‘good, clean & fair food for all’. But I was struggling to get going. Everything sounded formulaic and like a badly worded press release. And to be honest, it was boring. And that’s not my experience of Slow Food at all. It’s not formulaic, it’s not a tired press machine, and it’s certainly not boring. It’s full of the most amazing people and without some of them, I wouldn’t be in business.
I’ve been making my wines in Spain for nearly a decade. It hasn’t been an easy journey. I wasn’t bought up in a family chateau, I haven’t got money to burn. I’ve had to beg, steal, and borrow, my way into the wine world. I’ve done it, because I love it. Wine is my passion, it’s my drive, it’s my calling, and for the last 18 years it’s been my dream to make my own wines, in my own style. It took years of traveling the world learning how to make it before I could finally convince a winery in Spain to let me use their kit, use their infrastructure, and use their vines, to turn that dream into a reality.
I’m skipping lots of the story to get to the point, but I make my wines in Spain because wine is one of those glorious products that are intrinsically linked to their birthplace. I can’t make my wines anywhere else in the world. I had to find the place I believed in, to make the wines I believe in. I did that in 2015 and since then, together with my parent winery, we’re now fully organic, working with indigenous varieties, and reestablishing lost vineyards sustainably. We’re making wines with passion, purpose, and provenance. And that could be the story. That could be the hook, because the way our ethos has developed from commercial wine production into regenerative farming is the perfect narrative arc for Slow Food. But there’s another point I want to make. None of my successes would have been possible without the people I’ve met through the Slow Food movement, and finding a support network is everything when you work for yourself.
I like the saying ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. The same is true of small businesses. It takes a cast of hundreds to turn an idea into a reality. To turn passion into profit. And for me, most of that support came from outside of the wine industry.
When I launched my first wine, I had to start from nothing. I had no contacts, no routes to market. No knowledge of how I was going to sell the thing I’d worked so hard to make. Then I made some tentative steps into the hospitality world and slowly the wool was pulled from my eyes. Because once you share your passion with someone, they might just share their passion with you. And from those tentative steps I met chefs who wanted to share their world of food with me. They introduced me to their suppliers. I met cheese makers, brewers, potters, distillers, foragers, coffee roasters, and one charcutier that has helped me as if I was a member of his own family.
This motley crew of eccentric characters became vital to the early days of Paso-Primero. They gave advice, shared cautionary tales, and often went out of their way to help with deliveries or orders. The reason they did all this was because we were all bound by an unwavering passion for our own product. It didn’t matter that we made different things, or ran different businesses, the focus on making the best thing, or serving the best things, and doing it in the best way, meant we all had a common cause. We were all somehow in this thing together no matter where we’d come from, so we helped each other as much as we could.
For me, the epicentre of this support network is Ludlow Food Festival. A show so important to the early years of Paso that it’s almost difficult to overplay its significance. That’s where I started to realise that all the people helping me were Slow Food members. All the people making their thing with the same dedication I had for my wine, were Slow Food members. The community of producers at that festival is ridiculous. Supportive, informative, and relentlessly positive. It’s opened doors, helped with sales, and been a highlight in the calendar every year. And nearly all of it is down to the local Slow Food group. I’m proud to be a member, proud to see my wines stand next to other incredible products, and proud to be part of something bigger than me.
