The Buyer | Roebuck Viticulture Academy sommeliers get hands-on practice

Visiting a Sussex vineyard in early March isn't glamorous. Yet fourteen sommeliers from England's finest establishments (e.g. The Berkeley, The Connaught, The Ritz, Gordon Ramsay restaurants) are exactly where they chose to be. Armed with secateurs and curiosity, they've come to Roebuck Estate not to taste wine, but to understand where it begins: in the vineyard, one careful cut at a time. This is the fourth year Roebuck is running its Viticulture Academy, a programme that invites sommeliers to observe an English vineyard through the growing season, from dormant winter vines to autumn harvest. It's hands-on, detail-focused, and unapologetically technical. Joanna Dabrowska reports