Why I’ll be raising a glass to ‘vinfluencer’ Brooklyn Beckham

From hot sauce to bordeaux, Beckham Junior has an uncanny knack for tickling our tastebuds. The Independent’s wine columnist Rosamund Hall says he deserves our praise – not our scorn

Is Brooklyn Beckham a twenty-first-century polymath? From his humble (career) beginnings as a teenage barista, you can add professional photographer, model, footballer, hot sauce brand entrepreneur and now “vinfluencer” to his list of nepo baby credentials. But believe me, I’m not feeling sour grapes about any of it. Quite the contrary: I want to hear Brooklyn talk about wine, a lot!

Okay, so he might not be a fully fledged vinfluencer (that’s a social media influencer with a heavy wine focus if you were wondering), but a recent video he filmed with Lukas Dempsey, a specialist from Sotheby’s (arguably the world’s most famous fine wine auction house) has certainly got us all talking.

The 12-minute video was filmed in the beautiful Thatcher’s wine shop in Brentwood, Los Angeles (alas, not Brentwood, Essex, although I would have loved that connection to his dad’s spiritual home). I confess, I was sceptical – but Brooklyn did the wine world proud.

Introduced as a “hot sauce creator, wine and culinary enthusiast”, Brooklyn comes across as disarmingly open and friendly for the son of two of the world’s most famous people. He hooked me in with a sentiment I can strongly relate to: “Drinking some nice wines, it’s, like, my favourite thing to share with somebody.” Oh, Brooklyn, you get it. You get why wine is just so damn brilliant. Please share that love with the world – we need to hear it loud and proud.

Obviously, the naysayers are out. One said: “Never before has one man made so much noise whilst knowing so little about so many things.” But they miss the point. You don’t need to know anything about wine to enjoy it or express an opinion on it – and I say that as someone who has studied wine intensively and made it my passion, as well as my career.

Yes, the two men evidently had a nice bro chat over some pretty expensive wines, all of which were new to Beckham – he didn’t blag it and seemed keen to know more. And, as he said, he doesn’t exclusively drink exclusive wines every day.

But what I want to know is, what does Brooklyn drink every day?

You see, Brooklyn name-dropped some very special bottles in his collection – lurking in his cellar are château lafite and château latour, both from his birth year of 1999; and some 1966 château mouton rothschild too – quite the “who’s who” of the most prestigious and expensive wines from Bordeaux (which he did acknowledge). But it was the wines of Napa that sparked his interest in wine, thanks to his mum and dad taking him there on family holidays.

David, Victoria: I salute you as parents for helping Brooklyn discover the love of wine. I mean, admittedly, not all of us get to grow up going to the Napa Valley on the weekend, but something clearly rubbed off on him. He spoke fondly of David letting him smell the wine and getting him to taste it with a bit of water mixed in – how wonderfully continental European of him. But it was one wine that was his “aha” moment, that of the Napa producer, Bond.

Bond is one of the most expensive and hard-to-get-your-hands-on wine producers in the Napa Valley. Brooklyn’s wine lightbulb moment came from a bottle of pluribus, the Latin word for many (which is ironic as, in reality, this will only touch the lips of a few). If you want to snap up a bottle, the 2018 pluribus will set you back something in the region of £650 – not many of us are going to do that, are we?

But then, Brooklyn Beckham isn’t like many of us. We shouldn’t compare our world to the one that Brooklyn – and indeed Nicola Peltz Beckham, his daughter-of-a-billionaire wife – grew up in. But what we can all identify and share is his approach to wine. It is utterly joyous, humble and refreshing. As Brooklyn said, wine is very special and it does bring people together. I love that he loves sharing it, doesn’t pretend to know more than he does and realises that wine is a “neverending conversation”.

I can’t imagine how bountiful his cellar must be, but at least he seems grounded in the understanding that wine isn’t just about showy bottles – but the pleasure gained in sharing it with the people you love. So Brooklyn, ignore the haters – I will raise a toast to you, my fellow wine lover, with a wine that is probably inferior to yours. Bevvies with Brooklyn? I like the sound of that...

Rosamund Hall (DipWSET) is a freelance writer, presenter and columnist specialising in wine and spirits as well as lifestyle, travel and parenting