A Look Inside The ‘Build Your Own Table’ IWD Dinner

Hosted by Sharmadean Reid and Laura Jackson, take a look at what went down at our International Women’s Day Dinner at 180 The Strand

By Hannah Connolly

LONDON: It’s been two years since The Stack World first launched – debuting as a pandemic-pivot that has grown over the last 24 months into a global community of more than 12,000 women – but the message has remained the same, to empower women to build their personal and professional networks.

Hosted at 180 The Strand, 180 women came together for an evening in celebration of building our own tables and IWD 2023.

Dinner was paired with Rock Angel rosé.

Restaurant Review (From “Eating Farm to Table, by Way of a Former Quarry” By Marc Hurwitz)

Look around Greater Boston and much of the rest of New England and you’ll see granite everywhere: in house foundations, monuments and obelisks, bridges, sidewalks and, if you’re a hiker, ancient stone walls in the woods.

Much of the granite you see today came from long-abandoned quarries—there are famous ones just off the highway in Quincy—but you can also find quarries hidden away in places like Rockport, Sharon, Lynnfield, and Woburn. One of the former quarries is even home to an upscale restaurant, one with a name that certainly hints at its history.

The Quarry Restaurant & Lounge in Hingham sits atop an old quarry pond which adds a bit of beauty and peace to its location. The stretch of Route 53 that runs through Weymouth and Hingham has a wide variety of dining options, and while much of the Weymouth section and the part in Hingham near Route 228 (and Route 3) are busy and often congested with traffic, the right-hand section of the line Weymouth/Hingham is quiet and largely undeveloped. You’ll find The Quarry in this wooded backdrop.

The Quarry is perhaps more of a wine or cocktail spot than a place to grab a beer, though it certainly does a number of excellent local brews as well (and the South Shore has become increasingly known for its great breweries). However, the wine list is where the restaurant really shines, having been awarded the Wine Spectator’s Award of Excellence several times. Among the options here are Veuve Clicquot Brut Yellow Label champagne, MacRostie chardonnay, Château d’Esclans Whispering Angel rosé, and, for red wine lovers, Château Saint-André Corbin Saint-Georges-Saint-Émilion. Cocktails are excellent at The Quarry, with a few favorites like the slightly maple Old Fashioned, and the Southern sour men with bourbon and the “Mike Tay,” which packs a bit of a punch.

What to do for Mother’s Day 2023

Enjoy a traditional Sunday lunch or afternoon tea at Murrayshall

This Mother’s Day, Murrayshall is launching a new children’s version of afternoon tea for £12.50.

Treat mum to Sunday lunch or afternoon tea at the award-winning Murrayshall Country Estate.

For a traditional Sunday lunch with all the trimmings, head to Eolas (pronounced O-lass). It recently won ‘Best UK Hotel Restaurant’ and you’ll find views for miles, with two courses from £28.

Choose from five starters, including George Campbell’s Scottish salmon, and five main dishes, including corn-fed chicken breast, homemade gnocchi or slow roast sirloin of beef from the local butcher. Then finish off with hand-crafted desserts like crème brulee and sticky toffee pudding.

Or sit back and savour one of Murrayshall’s legendary afternoon teas in Barossa Bar or Cairns for £27.50. Specially for Mothering Sunday, the hotel is launching a new children’s version of afternoon tea for £12.50, with something savoury and sweet to tempt them with.

Plus, every mum will receive a gift before departure as well as a special offer to return to Murrayshall Country Estate another time.

Book Sunday lunch or afternoon tea at Murrayshall online or by calling 01738 551 171.

Get 10% of Taymouth Marina with code TCMD100

Share a bottle of Whispering Angel and get a hand tied bouquet of flowers for an extra cost of £90.

Taymouth Marina is delighted to present some beautiful Mother’s Day special offers on the 19th of March.

The team have prepared a special 3 course set meal for you and yours in the beautiful Gastro bar and restaurant. This set menu is £30 for three courses or £25 for two courses – both include a glass of fizz, too!

You may wish to upgrade your visit to Taymouth Marina with a bouquet of flowers to celebrate your awesome mother/mother figures in your life. These can be delivered to your table upon dining at a cost of £40.

Or you could really push the boat out with a bottle of Whispering Angel to share and a hand tied bouquet of flowers from the local artisan florist for an extra cost of just £90.

The Wine Awards by Cosmo Middle East and MMI Dubai: Meet the Judges

Get ready for our Wine Awards winners coming out today

By Sara Alhumiri


The reveal of the winners for The Wine Awards by Cosmo Middle East and MMI Dubai is fast approaching. Just in time for the weekend on 3rd March, you’ll find out what some of the best whites, reds, and sparkling drinks are, judged by none other than the region’s leading wine connoisseurs.

At the beginning of this year, it was announced that Dubai would be dropping its 30% alcohol tax, as well as the fee tourists and expats previously had to pay for a license to buy alcohol from stores to drink in private. So it looks like it’s happy hour, every hour 🍷.

We’re bringing you 60 wines, 19 categories, and 4 judges to give you ~all~ the wine inspo you’ll never need. Not only do our judges really, really like wine (obvs,) they’ve even blind tasted the best-selling wines so there’s no bias here, ppl!

Tony Dodds

General Manager of Wine and Champagne at MMI 

Tony Dodds is MMI’s wine aficionado with almost 4 decades of experience in the wine industry. After graduating college, Tony worked at the prestigious Gleneagles as a waiter and junior somm, then spent 10 years in Bermuda as a sommelier and maître d’. He went back to the UK to gain his WSET Diploma, winning a scholarship and worked for 3 different wine merchants and wholesalers before moving to MMI Dubai in 2006.

The moment you knew you wanted a career in wine? 

Early on, working as a junior sommelier, being tasked to learn something new about a specific wine I’d served each night after service, really grabbed my interest.

Favourite rose…

Again too many to pick one, I really enjoy Turkey Flat or De Bortoli’s Rose Rose from Australia, and from Provence, I‘m very happy to sip Rock Angel or Garrus from Chateau d’Esclans.

All the best Mother’s Day gifts to treat your loved one to this year

By Suzanne Norris

With Mother’s Day just around the corner, (take note: it’s Sunday 19 March), it’s time to start thinking about how you’re going to spoil your loved one on their special day. She smiled through years of burnt toast breakfast in bed in the early days, so as adults it’s our duty to make up for it with gorgeous and thoughtful gifts to really make her day. Extra points if it’s something she’d never treat herself to.

Photo: Deer Valley Resort


If mum is a rosé fan, it doesn’t get much more iconic than Whispering Angel. Expects flavour notes of grapefruit and citrus.

Après fun at Deer Valley

By Aimee L. Cook

Photo: Deer Valley Resort


PARK CITY, Utah— The Fire and Ice après party returns to Deer Valley’s McHenry Beach featuring a 20-foot ice bar created by the Deer Valley Mountain Operations team.

This year’s event will feature Whispering Angel rosé from Chateau de Esclans in Provence France and cocktails from Belvedere Vodka. Fire & Ice is a collaborative event with Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessey and is for adults 21 and over.



Born in Bordeaux in 1960 and educated in the US, Sacha Lichine has worked in every discipline of the wine industry, from production to final sales. He started running Château Prieuré Lichine in 1987, and bought Provence estate Château d’Esclans in 2006. Since then, he has created Whispering Angel, Rock Angel and Château d’Esclans.

What or who inspired you to become a winemaker?

Growing up in the business and spending the summers of my youth at Château Prieuré Lichine and Château Lascombes instilled a sense of passion that inspired me to build my professional career. Having the opportunity to learn about wine this way and under the influence of my father, Alexis Lichine, made wine a way of life. This was enhanced through working in the vineyards.

What’s your favourite part of the job?
Knowing how to make wine and how to sell it. There are few who know how to do both. Creating a beautiful, noble product and having the opportunity to enjoy it. To drink what you make and make what you drink.

What’s the hardest part?
Dealing with unknowns. As an agricultural product, all of the climatic risks are nerve-wracking. From a business perspective, as you
are dealing with a luxury product, the hardest part is paying attention to an accumulation of detail that has to be closely monitored, making it critical to never miss a beat on a plethora of fronts.
What’s your go-to drink at the end of a long day?
Either a Bombay Sapphire Martini “up”, shaken with olives, or our rosés, or a glass of French or New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Make sure that you start as early, from the youngest legal age as you can, drinking quality. Buy a corkscrew, travel and never stop
learning. A great expression that my father had, which has been a guiding mantra in my life, is not to follow trends, but to start them.
Which wine-related achievement are you most proud of?
Creating a category relative to giving rosé the distinction of handily capturing new consumers and outpacing change in the contemporary wine landscape.

Who is your inspiration in the wine world today?
It’s a multitude of people. Beginning with my father, Alexis Lichine; Mel Dick, president of the wine division of Southern Glazer’s
Wine & Spirits, Michel Rolland, Jim Allen, a mentor and former senior vice-president at Southern Glazer’s, the late Patrick Léon, my former consulting oenologist, with whom I created the Château d’Esclans range, followed by his son, Bertrand Léon, who has been my technical director for more than a decade. Beyond that there is also a select group of many others.

‘A great expression that my father had, which has been a guiding mantra in my life, is not to follow trends, but to start them’

Where would your fantasy vineyard be?
On the sea overlooking a beautiful, swimmable beach, with great terroir.
Which wine (grape/style) do you find it impossible to get along with?
Red wine over 14% ABV that’s over-concentrated, overextracted, unbalanced and gives little pleasure. It is like putting a Shetland sweater in your mouth. No thank you.
How have your wine tastes changed over your career?
They haven’t changed, but evolved. I love the great wines of the world.


A Fashion Company CEO’s Assistant on the Champagne and Compost Filters She Buys for Her Boss

By Arielle Avila

Assistant is a bit of a catchall term. Sure, assistants schedule meetings, take notes, and retrieve coffee, but they can also act as a quasi concierge, sending fruit baskets to top clients and buying gifts for partners. In an effort to unearth the highly specific material needs of powerful people, we sat down with “Marcella,” the executive assistant to the CEO of a fashion-production company with a roster of well-known clients and eight offices around the world. We spoke with Marcella about the 50 bottles of Champagne she raced to pick up across the city, the designer dog collar she imported from Europe, and the composter that makes fresh soil her colleagues “fight over.”

Office Essentials

Marcella began working at the company as the office manager of the New York location, and by the end of 2021, she was promoted to the CEO’s first-ever executive assistant. Though her boss likes being self-sufficient, Marcella says he decided to change her role after they worked together on a demanding office renovation. She now manages the CEO’s calendar as well as those of all the international branches, and stocks supplies for a dog-friendlysustainable office.


Whispering Angel Rosé

$20

Because Marcella’s boss is a wine connoisseur, he likes having several varieties — only white, so it doesn’t stain the carpets — from makers the company works with on tap in the kitchen for late nights. On one of those evenings, he was on a call and signaled a “W” with his hands, which Marcella thought meant “water.” When she went to fill up a glass, she saw him shake his head. He then started wobbling in his chair to pantomime what he was asking for, but she still couldn’t figure out what he wanted. Finally, he texted her, “Whispering Angel, please.” Marcella ran to the nearest wine shop and bought him a bottle. She now makes sure to order the well-priced and not-too-sweet rosé for his conference room’s mini-fridge and is looking to add it to their office tap.

Café Boulud’s 20th anniversary at the Brazilian Court in Palm Beach

The mood was celebratory as Café Boulud Palm Beach marked its 20th anniversary at the Brazilian Court hotel on January 18. Partygoers toasted Michelin-starred Chef Daniel Boulud as he thanked them for their steadfast support for more than two decades.

Guests sipped on Laurent Perrier, Remy Martin, and Whispering Angel while tasting the sumptuous foods passed and positioned at stations around the picturesque courtyard, including bites from former Café Boulud Executive Chefs Rick Mace and Zach Bell, as well as current Executive Chef, Dieter Samijn.

Themed “One Night in Rio,” a call back to their location at the Brazilian Court, the event also featured Brazilian dancers, fire performers, and a drum line.


SACHA LICHINE: THE MASTER OF LUXURY WINE

Sacha Lichine is a name that is synonymous with luxury and elegance in the wine world. He is the owner of Château d’Esclans, one of the world’s most renowned wine estates, and the creator of Whispering Angel, a rosé that has taken the world by storm. In this exclusive interview with Elite Traveler, Sacha shares his insights on the world of luxury and how he has built his brand into the epitome of sophistication and exclusivity.

His journey into the world of wine began at a young age. He grew up surrounded by vineyards and winemaking, and it was only natural that he would eventually follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, who were both winegrowers. However, He wanted to bring something new and unique to the table, and this drive has led him to become one of the most innovative and successful winemakers of our time.
One of Sacha’s key philosophies is to never compromise on quality. He is a firm believer that the finest wines are made from the finest grapes, and this is why he is so dedicated to finding the best vineyards and terroirs in the world. This is evident in the quality of his wines, which have received numerous accolades and awards, including multiple Gold Medals and a prestigious place in the Top 100 Wines of the Year list.
He is also a pioneer in the rosé wine market. He was one of the first winemakers to take this style of wine seriously and to invest in its production on a large scale. His efforts have paid off, and Whispering Angel is now one of the most sought-after rosés in the world, enjoyed by wine lovers and celebrities alike.


When asked about the future of luxury, Sacha is optimistic and believes that there will always be a demand for the best of the best. He notes that people are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their tastes, and they are willing to pay a premium for products that are of exceptional quality and that offer a unique experience. This is why he is so focused on making his wines the best they can be and on providing an unforgettable experience to those who enjoy them.