About Michael Sager

Michael Sager is a multi-linguist with a strong background in importing, retailing and serving wine and spirits to the on trade. Michael has been instrumental in shaping the London drinks scene. His passion for wine started in San Francisco, where he lived for two years, working under award-winning sommelier Raj Parr. His London career has seen him oversee the likes of Milk and Honey, Quo Vadis and Happiness Forgets.

In 2012, he opened the first Sager + Wilde, which has become a revered London institution, and which now has two sites in Hackney, with big sis location Fare being added to the roster in 2018. Each of the sites have received multiple prestigious awards including 3 Star Awards from World Of Fine Wine.

Michael has personally won various key industry awards for his work, including GQ’s UK Sommelier of the Year and IWSC’s Outstanding Achievement in the Wine Industry, and the Tales of the Cocktail International Restaurant Bar of the year award.

When he’s not overseeing his 3 London wine bars and restaurants, Michael’s time is divided between his mezcal business El Destilado that he founded in 2016, and travelling the world kitted out with his Leica getting stuck in to the vineyards that are the foundation of the wine lists that grace the tables across his 3 London sites.

Whilst in 2020, the world came to a standstill, Michael used this time to build and grow Sager + Wine, a direct import company working directly with 30 producers across the globe from Europe, to Mexico, to the US building an all encompassing and holistic portfolio of producers.

Working with producers diverse not only in their work but also in their backgrounds, locations and gender, Sager + Wine is a vehicle to continue to drive the conversation forward. Ensuring there is a place for everyone and everything in the UK. The focus is on importing not only low intervention wine, but also spirits such as Mezcal, Fernet and Amaro, Beer from the Jura region in France, Wine from places as remote as Tenerife, Pantelleria and Baja California, and category bending, chef driven low alcohol ferments such MURI from the people behind Noma Fermentation Lab and AMA from the development chefs at Mugaritz in the Basque country.