All for one and one for all

But, as Gareth Cosslett discovers, Newcastle's Jesmond Dene House is no ordinary hotel.

From the roll of his eyes, it's clear this is not the first time David Borwick has been asked the question. It's a question most Newcastle-based sommeliers will no doubt have encountered at some time.

"Has anyone ever ordered a bottle of dog to go with their foie gras?"

For those non-fluent in Geordie, a "bottle of dog" is the local sobriquet for Newcastle Brown Ale. And, yes, they have.

Not that this is a problem at Jesmond Dene House, where nobody is prejudged before walking through the handsome entrance of this former grand townhouse-turned-boutique hotel which now attracts its fair share of Premiership footballers, celebs and top business people. But David Borwick winces a little at the question, because he doesn't believe in stereotypes.

For a start, the hotel he's worked in since July 2006 defies conventional categories. Built in 1822 by renowned architect John Dobson, this Gothic pile has the feel of a country house hotel (it is flanked by the wooded valley of Jesmond Dene public park) yet it is squarely within Newcastle's city boundaries and just a five-minute drive from the city centre.

The quietly spoken 38-year-old's own career path is also far from stereotypical for a sommelier. Brought up across the Pennines in the Cumbrian town of Ulverston (birthplace of one Stan Laurel), he started off as a postman and never opened a bottle of wine before he was 30. A bar job on the Isles of Scilly saw him thrust into the role of sommelier ("because I was the only man working there, and they thought most people expect blokes to know about wine") and he was hooked, nose deep in wine books while stuck on his island.

He then moved on to work as a sommelier at Sharrow Bay in the Lake District, the Box Tree in Ilkley and the Hotel Du Vin in Harrogate. He's also rolled his sleeves up at harvest time in vineyards in the Loire Valley and South Africa.

A new scheme he's been spearheading at Jesmond Dene House is also helping to break down another stereotype - that the catering trade doesn't invest in training its people. Borwick has now personally trained a total of 40 hotel staff in the Wine and Spirit Education Trust's (WSET) Level 1 course; 20 of those have progressed to Level 2 and an elite nine have progressed to the advanced level three stage.

According to the hotel, this gives them the highest percentage of staff trained in internationally recognised wine training courses in the country. The course has been open to all, and those participating include housekeepers, chefs, receptionists and even the administrative staff running the back office.

"This industry is often guilty of taking a short-term view of its staff," says Borwick. "It gets into a vicious circle of having a high turnover of people, so they don't bother investing in them. We've taken that first important step.

"If you want to have high quality staff, then you have to train them. The alternative is what we see in the health service, where we poach nurses and doctors from developing countries. It's only a short-term solution and surely the best approach is to properly build the skill base and diffuse knowledge throughout the organisation," says Borwick.
One of the people to benefit from the training is the hotel's co-owner Peter Candler. He is the driving force behind Jesmond Dene House alongside one of the best known faces in the North East's catering trade, Michelin-starred chef and Caf 21-owner Terry Laybourne.

Candler was one of the nine who made it to advanced level three stage of the WSET course and is now reaping the benefits. "It's helped me appreciate wine more. I can now enjoy it, not be intimidated by it and understand it," he says.

The process of learning about wine has been mirrored by Candler's learning about how to run a hotel. A successful property developer, he says he knew "within 20 seconds" that Jesmond Dene House should become a hotel when Newcastle City Council put the empty, run-down building that had previously been used as a special needs school on the market in 2002.

Competing with other local property developers clamouring to turn the house into luxury apartments meant it didn't come cheap. Candler has a wry smile on his face when he says one of his aspirations for the hotel is "to get a commercial return in my lifetime not my children's".

To do that, he realises he needs to invest both in the business and the people who work there. "I think we're there on what I call the 'hardware' - the finishings, the furniture, the overall look of the place. We've set our stall out and I think we've got what it takes to be a truly great hotel. But it's the 'software' we still need to work on - how people work together, how they work for customers, the overall feel of the place. That's the hard side and that's what we're still working on," says Candler.

He's already planning to train more staff next year in the WSET courses and is looking to build a team of sommeliers working under Borwick, who has been given a free hand to expand the wine list into more niche areas such as German wines and more regional French varieties.

With its annual Festival of Food and monthly winemaker's dinners, Candler has put food and wine right at the heart of Jesmond Dene House. And if that means training the cleaners the difference between a Gewurztraminer and a Grenache, then so be it.