Earlier this year I spent a day with my commercial photographer hat on with this fabulous couple in Rutland for their Italian wine importing company, Bat and Bottle. We were up with the sunrise to find a quiet spot by Rutland Water, ‘drinking’ wine and generally having a bit of a laugh. The plan was to spend a full day with them doing a series of mini shoots, capturing them in their natural habitat in the small and beautiful town of Oakham where they are based. From the Water we pottered into town, shooting around the castle through the Saturday market (where they stopped to chat to everyone they knew, which was just about everyone!), then on to their shop for a bit of wine tasting (yay!). For the last part of the day we had an al fresco meal planned with homemade pizzas hand thrown by Ben and cooked in their outdoor pizza oven, so Emma suggested we pop over to Wissendine Mill and pick up some of their gorgeous freshly milled flour to use in the pizzas. What an amazing place, it was like stepping back in time, Emma chatted with the miller, Nigel Moon (fabulous name btw) about his incredible history and his fight to keep the mill operating against all odds while I snapped away in excitement with the gorgeous light. We climbed (very nervously I might add) up the somewhat rickety stairs to the very top with Nigel chatting about the mill and the agricultural industry as a whole. An incredibly interesting and knowledgable chap. After a couple of fascinating hours with Nigel we kept going with the pizza preparation and on into the evening, celebrating the brand story with a few bottles of their stock. A completely fabulous day wrapped up in a lot of laughs and some simply divine wine. x
This looks absolutely spectacular and now I want to eat pizza and drink wine! Fabulous!