It was not until Toby’s time as a music student in the late 1990’s that he discovered wine as a passion, and it came about quite by chance after he took a part-time job in a wine merchant in Chiswick, London. He instantly became fascinated and inspired by the myriad of bottles, countries of origin and styles and was hooked. After graduating from the Royal College of Music, Toby decided to make a career out of wine and joined Oddbins (as many starting out in the UK wine trade did back then).

A move into the on-trade saw him taking a job with Forth Wines as a Sales Manager, during which time he completed his WSET Diploma. He landed his dream job as a wine buyer in 2012 and now has responsibility for a portfolio of over 1,400 wines and annual sales of over 6 million bottles. Toby is an MW student.

As well as the core responsibilities of his role, Toby has judged in wine competitions in France and for the International Wine Challenge, regularly presents wine dinners and travels very regularly to the wine regions of the world to ensure that Inverarity Morton are identifying and setting trends in the UK wine market, rather than following the lead of others.

As the wine trade is not just a chosen vocation but a lifestyle choice for most buyers, it is no surprise to learn that Toby still spends much of his spare time engaged in matters relating to wine and his holidays tend to involve visits to wineries and searching out the lesser known local specialities, some of which have even ended up in the Inverarity Morton portfolio.

Hill walking, photography and gastronomy are Toby’s other passions and fortunately, given his lack of spare time, they can often be combined. The eagle-eyed will spot many examples of his photography in the new Inverarity Morton Wine Portfolio.