Chateau Monty Chateau Monty: What Happened Next

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11. The late Bill Baker (Image 11 of 13)

Rich: Bill Baker famously threw Harry out of your van – did he really dislike such a cute pooch?!

Monty: Bill Baker was a fan actually. I've got to set the record straight here. Bill was such a character and so funny and he actually loved Harry, I can tell you. He loved dogs. When he got into the van and Harry was there I did say I could get rid of the dog because Bill had his nice suit on, but he said, "No, I love dogs, he's staying with me." I did warn him Harry would dribble and drool all over him but he said, "Don't worry about it." Of course, when we stopped we had that now infamous moment where he threw Harry out of the van, but that was just because Bill was an incredibly funny man and he honestly loved dogs.

Bill and I go back a bit - I met him about four years ago at an organic wine competition. We tried about 150 organic wines and at the end of it he said, "It's bloody rubbish, organics. A Load of f**king b**locks!" and to be fair, a lot of the wine at this event wasn't particularly good. We got to know each other and had a laugh there. He was the ideal sceptic for my wine. He is a genuine sceptic, and he told me, "Look, my job is to buy and sell good wine. I don't care how it's made. It can be biodynamic or organic or neither but it has to be good so I can sell it."

There are a lot of people who share this pragmatic view, and the reason I farm organically and biodynamically is that I think it results in a better quality, better-tasting wine. You either go to war on your vineyard or you make friends with it. I don't need to spray it with fertilisers and weed killers and insecticides - you add one chemical and then you need another one to counterbalance some of the negative effects of the first one and it just starts to get silly. It ruins the soil too. Wine is natural and there's nothing natural about chemical fertilisers and lots of other nasty stuff. My wine is clearer, fresher and tastier for it.

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