Ed Capper - Wine Expert
Ed Capper leans on the counter of the Dartmouth Wine Company smiling after chatting to a customer buying honey whiskey. Ed and the man chatted through the pluses and minuses of each particular brand, before a sale was made – Ed clearly enjoyed the exchange.
“I love being able to chat to people about what we sell,” he said. “It’s great helping people find the drink that is right for them and perhaps for the event they are planning.”
Ed’s journey to becoming a member of the Dartmouth community, manager and partner of the Wine Company and respected musician to boot, is an interesting one, which often has taken him in unexpected directions.
Born in Huddersfield in 1964, the young Ed remembers being surrounded by music from a young age.
“My mother was a very talented musician – she was a member of the Huddersfield Choral Society - and there was always music in the house,” he said. “My sister, brother and I can all play instruments and I got really involved in music at a young age.”
From the age of eight, Ed was playing in brass bands and he even joined his Uncle’s band, travelling 26 miles each way twice a week, “over the big hill!”
“I’ve always loved performing music, there’s something special about it, the hairs stand up on the back of your neck,” he smiles. “You can’t beat it.”
He joined Her Majesty’s Royal Marines Band Service in 1981 – he played the cornet and, as it is a requirement of the band that you have more than one instrument “I held a violin occasionally” he laughs. He was drafted to the Britannia Royal Naval College in 1986, starting his association with the town that would later become his permanent home.
Ed was content to remain a bandsman, never aspiring to become band leader or move up in the Military and he came out of the Band in 1991 – ten years given to a service where he admits he “loved the music but never really liked the military stuff”.
Ed chose to remain around the South West and got a job in the Dartmouth Vintners – and says it was here that owner Hugh Heywood started him on a new path in his life.
“Hugh took me under his wing and carefully began to educate me about wine,” he said. “He started me off on Sauvignon Blanc, then to Chardonnay, helping me to understand the subtleties of flavour and how they come about – I had my eyes opened. I still remember the first bottle he handed to me to taste: a Sauvignon Blanc by the Brown Brothers. There was a complexity of taste, a layering of different sensations, which just had me hooked. I wanted to understand wine and Hugh was the man to help me do that. Before that, wine was just a liquid I sometimes drank – it instantly became more than that.”
Ed continued to work for and learn from Hugh – and then felt he needed some time out.
“I spent more than a year and a half travelling the world,” he said. “I went to New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, the Cook Islands and Thailand. I spent nearly a year of that time living in India and Nepal – which was a real eye opener as it’s such a different culture. I love finding new places to visit, and love the challenge of adapting to a new country - it was a wonderful time.”
Coming back to Blighty, Ed went back to work for Hugh and also tried his hand at a few other roles – including second hand car salesman.
Just after the Vintners was sold in 2000 – Ed continued to work there – he had an impromptu rehearsal with Sax Appeal and joined Mick Jones and James Harris in one of the area’s most popular touring bands.
“It was a really fun band to be a part of,” he said. “We had some amazing gigs, all over the country – from Lincolnshire to Cornwall and everywhere in between! It was a real privilege to be in a band which played at virtually every major event in the town – Regatta, Music Festival, big weddings, you name it, we seemed to be there!”
In 2006 Ed married partner Rachel, joined by her son Dylan, in a beach ceremony in Thailand.
Ed also joined the BRNC Volunteer band as one of the founder members with former bandleader Phil Watson when the Dartmouth Marines band folded in 2008.
“It was suggested at a band reunion in 2008,” he said. “I put my name down straight away. I’ve been at virtually every rehearsal and I’ve never missed a performance. Phil and his enthusiasm drive the band. He’s a fantastic leader and an inspiration to us – he’s its soul and it’s still something I have huge enthusiasm for.”
The Vintners, unfortunately went out of business in December 2008. It was a hugely sad day and Ed was left without a job.
“I was sitting in Alf Rescos the next morning, wondering what I was going to do next,” he said. “Chris Otter, who owns the Dartmouth Trading Company, came up to me and said he thought he would buy the stock and how much did I think it was worth? We started chatting, did some thinking and realised we thought we could make a go of it. We bought the stock, started paying the rent, put on a sale and went from there. Chris has been brilliant, a guardian angel really, but we have built the business on being good to our customers and hopefully giving them a great choice – we have wines from £4 to £400 and I love to match the wine or spirit to the customer.”
Job commitments meant Ed had to drop some of his music, so he has stopped playing with Sax Appeal, but is still a proud member of the Volunteer Band.
“It’s important for me to keep performing and to support this great community band,” he said. “It’s still fun, so why stop?”
For details about the Dartmouth Wine Company- click here
First Published August 2012 By The Dart