Gérard Basset

Gérard Basset (7th March 1957 – 16th January 2019) OBE MS MW MBA OIV MSc ASI World Champion was without question one of the greatest wine professionals of a generation. He was the first and only individual to hold the excruciatingly challenging Master of Wine qualification simultaneously with the Master Sommelier, Bordeaux KEDGE Wine MBA and the OIV MSc; an achievement that is unlikely to be repeated for years to come. The crowning glory of his career came in April 2010 when he won the ASI World Sommelier Championship (Santiago, Chile), cementing his extraordinary domination of the industry. This was further augmented on receiving an OBE in the 2011 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to hospitality and again in March 2013 when he joined the ranks of the wine elite as Decanter’s Man of the Year. Most recently he was made Chevalier of the Mérite Agricole by the French Minister of Agriculture.

Parallel to this success was a growing business empire that many only dream of, for Gérard was a founding partner of the hugely successful Hotel du Vin Group, which grew to six hotels before it was sold to Malmaison. During his ten years at the helm, Gérard mentored and trained a generation of young sommeliers who sought out his expertise and guidance to launch their own careers. Many have gone on to win industry awards and more still to launch their own successful businesses on the back of their experience at Hotel du Vin and, specifically, their grounding under Gérard.

© Photo by Mirentxu Bellet

The Co-Founders

  • Romané is a graduate of King’s College London with a First-Class Honours in BA French with English degree. He is Co-Founding Trustee and part of the Foundation’s day-to-day leadership team, with tasks ranging from liaising with potential and current Scholars and Grantees all the way to managing the Foundation’s online presence over social media and its website.

    Romané completed a five-month ‘stage’ working with Moët & Chandon in Épernay, France, where he worked for four of the five months in Hautvillers, specifically looking after VIP clients visiting to taste Dom Pérignon. He is looking forward to continuing onto his WSET Diploma studies in future. He has completed WSET Levels 1, 2 & 3 and agrees that like Father like Son, wine is in his blood.

    Romané has been brought up in the hospitality world and has spent all of his holidays travelling the world and visiting vineyards. He is the keeper of his father’s legacy and integral in judging and bestowing the varied awards created in his late father’s honour and a most worthy trustee in the newly created Gérard Basset Foundation.

    In June 2022, Romané Basset and his colleague and friend Sasha Lushnikov were selected and included in the Harpers Wine & Spirit 30 Under 30 – the inaugural list of drinks trade’s future leaders.

  • Alexander Arthur Lushnikov (“Sasha”) is a London-based entrepreneur. He is the Co-Founder & COO of Liquid Icons and Co-Founding Partner at the Gérard Basset Foundation.

    Sasha is a former early employee at Monzo Bank where he worked with its Executive Team as well as the FCA, PRA & The Bank of England to obtain a full UK banking license, turning Monzo into a fully-authorised, unrestricted bank. Prior Monzo, he was a part of the UK landing Growth Team at Bloomberg Ventures in London – a venture capital arm of Bloomberg LP. During his subsequent summer internship at the firm, he won The Best Intern in Europe & EMEA Award and became 1 of 3 best interns at Bloomberg LP in the world.

    Sasha is a Member of the World Shotokan Karate-Do Federation (WSKF). He is an International Referee WSKF who holds 3 Dan WSKF under Shihan Hitoshi Kasuya (Chief Instructor, WSKF; 9 Dan WSKF) and won Silver Medal at the 2012 WSKF World Cup in Tashkent, Uzbekistan as well as Bronze Medal at the 2009 WSKF World Championships in Tokyo, Japan.

    Sasha has graduated with a Political Economy degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he was awarded the Elite Athlete Prize for his athletic achievements three consecutive times in three consecutive years – for the first time in the university’s history. While at St Andrew's College Cambridge, where he was awarded with the Academic & Extracurricular Excellence Award as the finest-performing student in the history of the College.

    In June 2022, Sasha Lushnikov and his colleague Romané Basset from the Gérard Basset Foundation have been selected and included in the Harpers Wine & Spirit 30 Under 30 – the inaugural list of drinks trade’s future leaders.

  • Nina is a seasoned hotelier, having been instrumental in the co-founding of Hotel du Vin, Hotel TerraVina, and Spot in the Woods – all with her late husband, the very special Gérard Basset, by her side. The accolade of being the youngest ever AA Hotel and Restaurant Inspector – at only 21 – and the far too young winner of a Lifetime Achievement Award for Women in Business before she hit 40, have ensured Nina’s merit as a hospitality professional.

    Her love of fine wine stems from all of her holidays being spent with Gérard in various vineyards across the world. Living with such a wine legend ensured that his passion and enthusiasm for all things vinous rubbed off on both Nina and their son, Romané.

    From January 2019 onwards, Nina and Romané are ensuring Gérard’s legacy lives on, both by association with Liquid Icons – the company he co-founded with Lewis Chester DipWSET – as well as through the varied awards and scholarships in Gérard’s name that will ensure Gérard continues to be honoured for his enormous influence on sommeliers around the world and global fine wine industry. In October 2020, Nina accepted an invitation to become a Vice President of Academy of Food and Wine Service (AFWS), and then in November 2022 became General Secretary of the ASI, a position she held until the Summer of 2023.

  • Lewis was an FCA-authorised investment manager with over 20 years’ experience in the financial sector, managing a suite of hedge funds across a range of investment strategies from short-term trading to private equity. In 2014, Lewis and his friend, Gerard Basset OBE MW MS, set up Liquid Icons, a fine wine research and content production company. In January 2021, Lewis decided to focus on philanthropic activities and fine wine-related pursuits, by co-founding the Gerard Basset Foundation together with Nina Basset FIH, Romané Basset, and Sasha Lushnikov as well as Ian Harris MBE DipWSET, and Jancis Robinson OBE MW as Founding Trustees. Lewis served as a Trustee & Treasurer of the Foundation until December 2021 and subsequently transitioned into the role of Honorary President & Head of Fundraising - Golden Vines®.

    Lewis is an Oxford University graduate with a First Class Honours degree. While at Oxford, Lewis was awarded the John Ford prize for academic excellence. Lewis has an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School. Prior to investment management, he went to law school in London and qualified as a solicitor with Linklaters & Paines, one of the world’s leading law firms.

    While at Harvard Business School, Lewis founded The Churchill Club, a wine, whisky and cigar aficionado society. When pursuing his career in investment management, Lewis began building a collection of rare whiskies and fine wine for his family. Today Lewis runs a large portfolio of fine wine, not only for his family, but also advises other families on their collections. In 2014, Lewis was awarded the Champagne Academy Scholarship by the Wine & Spirits Educational Trust (WSET). He holds the WSET Wine Diploma with Merit and was awarded the prestigious WSET Hardy’s Vintage Scholarship 2017. In 2017, Lewis was the Captain of the Harvard Business School Blind Wine Tasting team that won the Pol Roger International Business School Wine Tasting Challenge. In May 2018, Lewis was made a Chevalier du Tastevin de Bourgogne. Since June 2022, he is The Fine Wine & Rare Spirit Columnist for The Robb Report (Penske Media Corporation).

The Story So Far…

Two friends had a vision to set up a company and “do stuff in wine”… Those friends were Gérard Basset and Lewis Chester, and the company was called Liquid Icons. Whilst they visited vineyards and tasted many great wines together, the other “stuff” they had hoped to do never happened, as Gérard sadly became ill and their ambitions for the company had to be put on hold.

Thus, following Gérard’s untimely and premature death, his wife Nina and son Romané, along with Lewis, were inspired to continue his legacy and do the “stuff” that they thought Gérard would approve of. With the unstinting support of Lewis Chester, Alexander ‘Sasha’ Lushnikov and the Liquid Icons team, a charitable foundation was created in Gérard’s name: The Gérard Basset Foundation. Trustees Jancis Robinson and Ian Harris joined Nina, Romané and Lewis in setting up many varied initiatives to honour Gérard’s legacy, all with the aim of making the wine, spirits and hospitality worlds fairer and more inclusive.

As time has progressed, and the Foundation grows, roles have changed and diversified. Now, under the guise of Liquid Icons Productions, Lewis and Sasha and their team are the Foundation’s main benefactors, who generously donate funds to the Foundation annually through the Golden Vines® Fine Wine, Rare Spirit & Experience Global Online Charity Auction. In recent years, they have been joined by Liv Woodhouse, Clément Robert and Philip Sheikh, and we thank them all for their generosity and hard work in raising funds for the Foundation and enabling us to have a profound and positive impact on many individuals in the wine, spirits and hospitality industries.

As the Foundation continues to grow and seeks to bring the positive impact of its funding and work to evermore facets of our industry, we have been delighted to welcome Lulie Halstead as our CEO and Christian Holthausen as our Head of Communications, both of whom were dear friends of Gérard’s and share our passion for continuing his legacy of mentorship, education and creating opportunities for talented individuals to thrive.

Gérard had no idea that a Foundation would be created in his honour, but we like to think that he would very much approve, and be very proud of the work we are doing and the people we help and support.

Thank you to all who enable us to help make a difference.