Earlier this year, a video of Amari Collins tasting wine in ebullient style on her landlord’s rickety roof helped her gain international notoriety as a wine aficionado. It’s a role she had been preparing for her whole life.
“My dad was a first-level somm, so he had me smell tasting notes and describe them out loud when I was quite young – probably too young,” she tells Broadsheet. “We’d be picking food from the backyard and pairing wine with it, and he’d be like, ‘What do you smell?’ And everything I said was always correct. He would get really excited, so I think that gave me the permission to have fun with it. It helped me establish a great relationship with wine and view it as more of an everyday thing rather than something that’s pretentious and hoity-toity.”
Known as Vin Dealer on social media, Collins is renowned for her fiercely fun, irreverent approach to wine. Unsurprisingly, this is also reflected in her palate – over time, her preference has shifted from the heavy cabernets she grew up with to more playful, natural styles. “I love getting to know farmers’ stories and how they’re doing it out of love and joy,” Collins says. “I love the biodynamic-ness of it all – where they sing to the plants and play music and harvest only when it’s a full moon or Saturn rising.”
Next month she’s bringing her trademark good energy to London via her education series, Swirl School. It will pop up at One Hundred Shoreditch for one night only on October 4, with Collins pouring bottles from UK producers.
“Ark Wines are a low-intervention winery – they have a lot of funk-a-donk chardonnays,” she says. “The winemaker’s gonna be there, so it’s gonna be fun.” She’ll also be swirling Amie, a London label known for its easy-drinking rosé, alongside a range of broadly European-style nibbles.
Collins hasn’t had the chance to taste much English wine yet – that’s partly the point of her visit. “I’m very excited to sink my teeth into the wine world in the UK. I’ve heard that, because of climate change, the UK is going to become a very similar climate to California,” she says. “So it’s gonna produce some crazy shit, if it isn’t already.”
Swirl School London runs from 6pm on Saturday October 4 at One Hundred Shoreditch. Tickets are now on sale.
