Lord Evander Pennington-Vass

Biography

Lord Evander Pennington-Vass has chaired the International Wine Excellence Council since 2009, presiding over what colleagues describe, without irony, as the longest uninterrupted period of institutional composure in the history of the sector. He is widely credited with the doctrine of Deliberate Pause, under which no Council resolution may be adopted until a silence of not less than forty seconds has been observed and minuted.

Before joining the Institution he spent two decades in the Lower Ashmere Cellar Appraisal Board, where he rose from Junior Examiner of Corks to Principal Arbiter of Opinion. His tenure is remembered for the Reconciliation of 1996, in which three rival schools of decanting were persuaded to agree on a shared vocabulary, a settlement that endured for almost eleven weeks. He is a Companion of the Order of the Decanter and sits on nine advisory boards, four of which he founded in order to sit on them.

Career history

• 2009–present
  ChairmanInternational Wine Excellence Council
• 2001–2009
  Vice-Chairman, Standards & DignityThe Shit Wine Guide
• 1993–2001
  Principal Arbiter of OpinionLower Ashmere Cellar Appraisal Board
• 1986–1993
  Director of Cellar EtiquetteThe Meridian Decanting Society
• 1983–1986
  Junior Examiner of CorksLower Ashmere Cellar Appraisal Board

Personal philosophy

Distinction is not declared; it is allowed to arrive, and then minuted.

Professional achievements

• Presided over the Reconciliation of 1996 and the Accord on Shared Adjectives (2011)
• Introduced the Deliberate Pause and the forty-second minute of silence
• Oversaw the Institution’s expansion from three offices to fourteen territories

Industry contributions

• Author of the Council’s Principles of Considered Opinion
• Chief architect of the Charter of International Excellence (2015)
• Patron of the Annual Convocation on Matters of Taste