About us
Terroirs is a small UK importer representing family-owned French growers. Each estate was chosen for the way it works its land, and for wines that taste of where they come from.
CORENTIN MARGIER
I’m Corentin, and Terroirs is the small UK wine import business I founded to represent a handful of growers I believe in, to the restaurants, hotels, merchants and private collectors who care about where their wine comes from. I grew up in Lyon, the capital of French gastronomy, between the Rhône and Burgundy, in a family for whom food, wine and the table around them were the centre of everything. My family is from the Northern Rhône, near Ampuis, in Côte-Rôtie and Condrieu country. None of them made wine, but they certainly drank it, and they taught me young that wine belongs to a meal and to the people sharing it.
I studied hospitality at Vatel in Lyon and spent my early career in restaurants and hotels across the United States, Europe and France. That included summer jobs from the age of fourteen at Georges Blanc in Vonnas, seasons in St Tropez, work at Sofitel in Washington DC and London, and a spell at Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester during the 2012 Olympics. The on-trade is where I started, and it remains the world I feel most at home in. For the past ten years I headed the buying and partnerships department of a London-based fine wine merchant with offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Napa and continental Europe. As Buying and Partnerships Director, I built and managed relationships with more than 250 suppliers a year, across direct producers, négociants, merchants, agents and distributors. The remit covered every major region, with a particular focus on Burgundy, Bordeaux and Champagne, which I visited several times a year to taste en primeur and keep close to the growers. Ten demanding and rewarding years that taught me most of what I know about the trade.
I left to do something smaller, and closer. Terroirs is an intentionally compact portfolio. I want to work with fewer producers, more deeply: to visit them often, understand their vintages as they happen, and be a proper voice for their wines in the UK. I also wanted to come back to the on-trade, to sommeliers and restaurateurs, which is where my palate was first formed. The portfolio grows slowly, and mostly through the people I’ve come to know over the years rather than through cold enquiries. The birth of my son in November 2025 sharpened all of it. It felt like the right moment to build something of my own, on my own terms, and to put down roots in London where we’re raising him.
What I look for in a producer is simple, and it’s the reason the business is called Terroirs. I’m drawn to human-scale, family-run estates, often with several generations behind them, and the confidence to evolve without breaking faith with what came before. I want growers who let the site do the talking, whose winemaking is an act of restraint rather than signature. I’m not dogmatic about natural wine, and I don’t care about certifications. What I care about is what the French call bon sens paysan, peasant common sense, applied honestly to a particular piece of ground.
The portfolio will remain largely French, and rooted in the regions I know best. Burgundy, because my wife’s family is from Puligny-Montrachet and I’ve spent fifteen years learning the village through them. The Northern Rhône, because it’s where my own family is from, and where my wife and I have a house in the Massif du Pilat, ten minutes from Condrieu, where we spend our summers. Champagne and Bordeaux, because a decade of buying in both regions has given me the relationships and the judgment to represent growers there when the right ones come along. They’re the places I understand, where I have the relationships, and where I’m confident I can tell you something useful about a bottle.
If any of that resonates, I’d be glad to hear from you.