Remembering Christie’s wine specialist Caroline Taverner
A funeral service was held in the packed Hampshire church of St. Mary Bourne on 1 May for former Christie’s wine specialist Caroline Taverner (née Montgomerie) who died on 2 April from Ovarian Cancer.
Numerous members of the wine trade were in attendance to remember “a beautiful friend who brought so much love, joy, laughter and positivity to every occasion,” according to her husband, Charles Taverner, who is managing director of Champagnes & Châteaux UK.
Caroline spent over seven years with the Christie’s wine department, originally based out of their Ryder Street office when she started in 1999, and latterly their South Kensington office. Over the years she worked in the department with such trade luminaries as Michael Broadbent MW, Anthony Hanson MW, Christopher Burr MW, Michael Henley MW and current International Director of Wines & Spirits, Tim Triptree MW – who was originally employed as her maternity leave cover.
During her time in the department, valuing and cataloguing wines and cellars for the auction house’s sales, as well as managing phone bidders, she was known to have had numerous exchanges with the now infamous “collector” Rudi Kurniawan, which with hindsight proved more interesting.
Caroline grew up in Greece, attended Cheltenham Ladies College where she was Victrix Ludorum (most successful athlete), before studying Archaeology at Southampton University.
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She started her wine career in the Harrods wine department, before stints at the Mark Reynier Wine Library in Pimlico and then Paragon Vintners – where she met her future husband, Charles.
When they moved to Hampshire in 2008 following the birth of their second son, she moved into the world of Health, Therapy and Fitness, trained as a Sports Massage Therapist, PT, and ran older adult exercise and Tai Chi classes locally.
Most recently she had been working as a Specialist Rehab Assistant with the NHS. Despite her dreadful diagnosis in September 2024, she remained positive, brave and vibrant throughout her torturous ordeal and intrusive treatment, forever maintaining her sunny outlook and embodying the phrase carpe diem. She will be greatly missed by the many people whose lives she touched.
She is survived by her husband Charles, sons William and Toby, her mother Jane and brother James. A remembrance page, where charitable donations can also be made in her loving memory, is online at https://carolinetaverner.muchloved.com
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