The people behind the Sundays

Alex grew up in his father's restaurant in Ukraine, clearing tables and listening to wine talk long before he could legally drink. Hospitality and enterprise run in the family, so this was less a decision than a default. He studied hospitality and exhibition business in Kyiv, took a master's in Poznań and interned in France and Italy.

Dubai came next, with time alongside Gary Rhodes, Sean Connolly, and Nick Alvis and Scott Price. He then crossed into wine distribution at MMI, a move he refers to as the dark side, managing some of the most iconic portfolios in the market. The WSET Diploma took him 23 months. He is now studying towards the Master of Wine.

He runs BWC with Christiaan. On a Sunday that background does the work: he knows how wine gets from a cellar to your glass. During the week he is at Graft Collab, the wine agency he co-founded. He is also known as the Riesling Snob, which is not a title he applied for. Wine, he says, connects people, cultures and stories. He signs off 'May the wine be with you'.

Chris Olivier is a Dubai-based sommelier, wine educator and partner in Breakfast Wine Club (BWC), the global wine community for curious pirates, trailblazers and hungry palates. Online he's @bettersommelier, on a mission to help every sommelier and wine lover to get better. Himself included.

Chris grew up on a wine farm in South Africa's Western Cape, where one glass of French wine showed him there was far more in the glass than grape. He trained as a chef and cooked his way through China, Mauritius and the Seychelles, then jumped ship to front of house, because that's where the guests are. Wine, service and business management followed, along with several acclaimed venues opened back home.

Dubai brought Grosvenor House, where he opened and built the beverage programmes for Buddha-Bar, Siddharta Lounge, Toro Toro and Bar 44, and ran a cellar of around 800 wine labels. Next came beverage manager and head sommelier at The St. Regis Downtown Dubai, then sommelier and F&B partnerships at One&Only One Za'abeel. Along the way he started Flight Club DXB, a crew for junior sommeliers to learn from each other, and Better Sommelier, which takes the mystery out of wine without taking the depth out of it.

Chris runs Breakfast Wine Club with co-founder Alex Kovalov. Sundays are for wine masterclasses and blind tastings in Dubai, where sommeliers and advanced wine students come to test their palates and lose gracefully. Weekdays belong to Graft Collab Agency, the Dubai wine brand strategy and brand management consultancy they co-founded. He calls it the day job. Nobody believes him.

Luxury is emotional, not transactional. Step up for people, never on top of them. Three words that fit: creative, conscientious, mercurial. If he were a grape he'd be Pinot Noir: elegant, quietly powerful and not to be rushed.

Pirates and wine punks, unite. Pull up a chair.