life
Tony Hernandez of ‘My Wines’
waited on tables, he worked hard and Tony hardly saw him. Meanwhile, grandparents on both sides would get young Tony to go up the Rock with other members of the family to pick rock lilies and sell them at 50 pence (old currency) a bunch. Tony, ‘The Entrepreneur’ would split each bunch into two to be financially rewarded twice! His granny used to make toilet roll covers of flamenco dancers and he’d go round from door to door selling them. He’d also help his other granny selling nuts and a type of salted beans (salaitos) popular in those days, making a few pennies there too. “My parents couldn’t afford my going to university so I took a job in Seruya’s perfumery store in Main Street as a messenger. I was 15 then and I was attracted to the idea of selling and by the time I was 17, I moved up the ladder selling in the store learning about the products from Pepe Nahon and Alfredo Traverso. I went to night school, learning Italian, did courses in perfume and accounting but later the store started to sell make-up and that was not to my liking. A job in Anglo-Hispano came up so I had to decide: perfume or wine? Selling wine is what I chose and eventually, after becoming a wine salesman visiting naval ships - many occasions on pleasant wine tasting missions - became manager at the Anglo-Hispano store at the beginning of Main Street which is now called VINOPOLIS.”
worked at Anglo for about ten years which included managing the store in Guadiaro up the road, serving the Sotogrande community in the For some, main.” Our business-minded, wine store manager thought it may be a desire to be it would be good to start bringing wines from other brave and countries also and not just take on the Spanish, French, Italian something and little else, but his bosses different... were not so keen on that idea... so that’s when shortly after, it was time to talk to the family to get them to come round to his way of thinking and “Night times consider the prospect of were the giving up his well paid job worst when and dive into the unknown!
you can’t stop thinking about what you’ve got yourself into.”
Today, I think we can reasonably say, ‘My Wines’ is successfully over the ‘scary’ threshold. Now in its fourth year of existence, it has become a very popular wine shop selling wines from all over the world. Food is also on offer these days and after work, de-stressing wine drinkers are a common sight with many other wine lovers gravitating towards Chatham Counterguard and ‘My Wines’ at weekends. It’s a popular meeting place on Fridays which often turns into an ‘extended meeting’ well into the night. So, Tony and business partner Glen Sanders seem to have got it right whilst always being very mindful of the fact when running a business you have to continually keep your eye on the ball, be aware of changing trends and generally keeping on top of things: all, for much of
Tony was in his mid-twenties and had no idea about selling wine when he first started but already had a heightened sense of smell because of his time learning about perfumes, “The aromas are good for wine and I went on to do courses on wine too. I 36
GIBRALTAR MAGAZINE AUGUST 2016