The week in pictures

The Super Bowl is up there with the World Cup, the Olympics and the Love Island intervals for lucrative advertising placements.

With its official launch just weeks away, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson used a hefty chunk of his resources to debut an advert for his new Tequila brand, Teremana, during the Super Bowl LIV Pregame.

The ad features Johnson, Rob Gronkowski, Jimmy Johnson and Jay Glazer playing a game of Never Have I Ever, with the friends light-heartedly mocking Johnson as he never fulfilled his dream of playing in the NFL.

Congratulations go to L’Enclume sommelier Lise Donier-Meroz this week, as she was crowned the winner of the inaugural Gérard Basset Travel Bursary at a Paulée-style dinner at 67 Pall Mall on Saturday 1 February.

The fundraising event, attended by friends and family, was a celebration of Basset’s incredible life in the wine trade. At the beginning of the evening, guests were invited to stand up and share their memories of Gérard, and many did just that. At one stage Raymond Blanc led the notable French contingent in the room – many of whom had either worked for, or been mentored by Basset – in a rousing rendition of La Marseillaise in Gérard’s memory.

Although the standards were high, judges Nina and Romané Basset, Ronan Sayburn MS, Tim Atkin MW and Laura Rhys MS said Donier-Meroz encapsulated the spirit of Gérard’s Travel Bursary best.

“Lise’s application was well-written, and we liked that she will use the funds to explore the whole South American continent, using eco forms of travel once she gets there,” Nina said, adding the young somm is “an exciting new talent, and we feel she will be a shining ambassador for Sommellerie.”

As well as a £5,000 bursary, Lise will receive help from the judges in planning and tailoring her trip to South America, to make it as educational and interesting an experience as possible. She plans to spend time in Chile and Argentina, but she also wants to focus on Uruguay and Brazil to explore the lesser-known pockets of the continent’s viticultural landscape.

In other #winning news, an amateur collector who bought a bottle of Scotch for £11 managed to sell it on for £2,700 in an online auction.

Michael Amphlett from Cholsey, Oxfordshire, bought a bottle of 1937 Macallan Single Malt Scotch Whisky in the late 1970s as a present for his father.

The age statement was a sentimental touch; as 1937 was the year his father moved Didcot as a 19-year-old glove maker, to work in a new factory in the area. The whisky bottle was eventually forgotten about, until Amphlett found it again recently, and decided to put it up for sale.

In beer news, Camden Town Brewery is publicising the launch of its latest seasonal Helles lager, Hells in Hibernation, by setting a hideaway for hedgehogs that need a place to sleep in winter and birth hoglets in the summer.

A limited number of shelters are be available on the Camden web shop, and 100% of proceeds go towards the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS). A portion of the sales of the beer will also go to the charity.

This week, db also travelled to Cannes for the Pink Rosé festival, the biggest trade show in the world dedicated exclusively to rosé wines.

One of the big draws to the festival is the Design Awards, which showcases all sorts of clever innovations in wine presentation that has been picked up by many producers in France’s Provence region.

Closures specialist Guala was also in attendance, showing off the company’s new NFC closures which allow consumers to tap their phone over the bottle and read more about the wine

On Tuesday, old hands from the on-trade descended upon new Mayfair bar Kwant London to hear bartender and author Jim Meehan and co-presenter Eric Lorincz reveal their secrets to creating a personal brand in the world of mixology, supported by rum brand Banks.

Boutique and artisanal drinks producers came out in force to show off their branding at the 40th London Critics’ Circle Film Awards last week. Bong Joon Ho’s dark class-war comedy Parasite came out on top at the 40th London Critics’ Circle Film Awards, while three-time Oscar-Winner Sandy Powell scooping The Lifetime Achievement Award for Costume Design

Fitz, England’s first Charmat sparkling wine, female-led mixer brand Double Dutch, Vestal Vodka, and gin brand Whitley Neil all sponsored the event.

In big spenders, New York bar chain Treadwell Park serves Oud Beersel’s Bzart Lambiek at US$125 a bottle at its Upper East Side site, which is believed to be the most expensive bottled brew on pour in the city.

Treadwell Park is one of a growing number of bars putting high-priced bottled brews on ‘reserve lists’.

Among those also pioneering the concept of ‘fine beer’ is Lower Manhattan’s Pretty Ricky’s, which as well as a long list on draught, also serves Deus from Belgium’s Brouwerij Bosteels for $90 a bottle.

And in more scandalous spending news, he parent company of Melbourne’s branch of Dinner by Heston, which went into voluntary liquidation in December, allegedly owes staff at least AU$4.5 million, according to a creditors’ report.

The report, which was obtained by The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, revealed that Dinner by Heston had been consistently underpaying its workers since it opened in the Crown Casino in 2015.

Tipsy Cake, the company that owns the Australian Dinner by Heston, entered voluntary liquidation in December 2019. The company is based on the Caribbean island and tax haven of Nevis, and its ownership details are hidden.