MERCHANT PROFILE
Tim Pearce, South Petherton, November 2021
Flying sourcer Former RAF engineer Tim Pearce changed course to bring quality wines to a not-quite-so remote corner of Somerset. Nigel Huddleston pays a visit
W
hen Tim Pearce decided to wind down his lucrative aeronautical engineering
consultancy, opening a wine shop was third on a list of three alternative career options. The first was a hang-gliding school in Spain, where the climate makes it more
market that fit the bill. So a wine shop it was – and Tim’s Wines
connects London with south west England
Petherton in the spring of 2017.
via Stonehenge.
“This little shop came up,” recalls Tim. “It used to be a ladies’ fashion shop. “I didn’t know the village but it looked really nice. We only lived seven miles away
does in the UK. That idea was scuppered by
in Long Sutton but never came here.”
The second was to buy a golf course in the UK, but there was just nothing on the
drive from the A303, the busy road that
opened in the Somerset village of South
of an all-year business proposition than it arcane Spanish property laws.
remote, but it’s actually only two minutes’
“We used to drive past it all the time on the A303 and didn’t even realise it was here,” adds Tim. He’d done a lot of international travelling during an RAF career as an engineering
With its stone-built shops and houses,
officer looking after Nimrod, Hawk,
red phone box and old-school indie traders,
Tornado and Hercules aircraft. After
South Petherton village centre feels
realising that his consultancy business was
THE WINE MERCHANT january 2022 34
