Sophie Jump and John Stimpfig
With their combined and complementary international experience in the world of wine, Sophie and John have joined forces to create a strong team geared up to provide professional wine tasting services completely adapted to your individual requirements.
Sophie Jump
Sophie began her career in the British Diplomatic Service where she served for 8 years with postings in Europe, West Africa and South East Asia. A long term desire to learn about wine brought about a career change when Sophie embarked upon the 18-month OIV International Diploma in Marketing, Management and Finance in the Wine and Spirits Sectors. Subsequently, she became a member of the founding team of one of Europe’s leading internet wine merchants, ChateauOnline where she worked for nearly four years as UK Director. A two year stint as Commercial and Marketing Director at Seguin Moreau complemented Sophie’s international experience and provided the motivation to form her own company, Jump Start in 2004. Jump Start provides strategic commercial and marketing services to South American wineries wishing to develop their presence and sales in the UK and other European markets. After 16 years living overseas, Sophie is now based permanently in London.
John Stimpfig
John started his professional life as a PR consultant and copywriter. However, in 1991, he enrolled on a course at the Wine & Spirit Education Trust and discovered that he wanted to be a wine writer. Three years later, he emerged with an honours pass in the Trust’s Diploma exam and began a brand new career. Since then John has written about wine for a number of business and consumer titles including The Financial Times, The Sunday Times, The Observer, Harpers Wine & Spirit Gazette, Decanter, Wine, Wine & Spirit, Investors Chronicle, Reuters and The Oxford Times. He writes a regular column for Decanter and is also a Contributing Editor to the magazine. In addition, he is (until May) the current Louis Roederer International Wine Writer of the Year – an accolade which he gained for a series of articles in the Financial Times’ ‘How To Spend It’ Magazine. John was also the Lanson Wine Writer of the Year in 2001 and Glenfiddich Wine Writer of the Year in 2002. Having lived in London, Australia and the United States, John currently lives amidst the ‘dreaming spires’ of Oxford.