SEBASTIAN SPENCE

Sebastian is co-president of OCAWS having joined the society in 2018, and oversees the society’s tasting schedule.

His love of wine began during a very educational and culturally enriching year abroad in France (apparently to study French literature). He left Bordeaux with a then encyclopaedic but now rusty knowledge of its vintages, going on to gradually expand his oenological horizons with the Cambridge wine society and pursuing WSET level 3. Outside of OCAWS and wine, he has a job and few other pastimes of note.

Cain Hayward-Hughes

Cain has what can only be described as a ‘portfolio career’ – reading Politics, Philosophy & Classics (BA) and International Relations (MA) at Nottingham University he then gained his CIMA Dip MA at Kaplan Financial - going on to study Macroeconomics at Oxford and Strategy at The Copenhagen Business School. He has worked for the likes of BT Group, Tesco, Amazon, Suntory, and William Grant & Sons.

His love of wine and spirits started early and ultimately led him into the industry – he is currently a Global Innovation Strategy Manager for William Grant & Sons where he creates and launches new-to-world brands.

An early member of OCAWS – Cain is continuing his passion for wine as the Societies’ Vice President.

Antoni Wrobel

Antoni is an alumnus of Corpus Christi College in Oxford, where he did an undergraduate in Biochemistry, and of Churchill College in Cambridge, where he completed his PhD in structural studies on proteins involved in endocytosis.

He is now a Postdoctoral Training Fellow in the Francis Crick Institute in London, where he continues to work in the field of structural biology focusing on the influenza viruses.

Antoni’s deeper interests in wine started to develop during his studies in Oxford but it was in Cambridge, where he honed his knowledge, especially in the field of blind wine tasting: Antoni represented Cambridge in numerous international competitions and Varsity matches against Oxford and his proudest achievements are winning the 61st Varsity Match and the Pol Roger International Blind Wine Tasting Match that followed it and coming the individual top taster in the latter, as well as coming, together with the Cambridge team, second in the world in the 2015 Left Bank Bordeaux Cup final.

Furthermore, he was also a captain and coach of the Cambridge Varsity Team and the president and treasurer of the Cambridge University Blind Wine Society and now, as a Vice-President of the Oxford and Cambridge Alumni Wine Society, he is trying to convince everybody that they need more sweet wine in their life.

Robert van Wijk

Robert graduated from New College, Oxford with an MChem in Chemistry in 2014 before embarking on a career in the City.

Having sampled the Club Claret of most of England’s finest golf clubs while playing for the University Blues golf team, his interest really took off after moving to London, joining the O&C Alumni Wine Society in 2015.

As Treasurer, Robert keeps the Society’s finances in order, and he tries to apply the same disciplined approach to his own wine “investment portfolio.” Fortunately, temptation usually gets the better of him.