Meet Our Buyers

September 26, 2025

Buying wine for Vagabond is not just a matter of ticking boxes. A drinks buyer tastes thousands of wines a year, travels across regions, meets producers from every corner of the globe and has to balance curiosity with discipline. The role is equal parts treasure hunter, scientist and storyteller. Our buyers are the ones who decide what ends up in your glass and why it is worth your time.

At Vagabond we are lucky. Our buying team has been recognised with awards for innovation and retailing (including Best Buying Team: On-Trade at the Wine Buyers Awards, no less), and regularly judges at some of the world’s most prestigious wine competitions. But more importantly, they are the reason our machines pour everything from classic favourites to hidden gems, always with a sense of fun and discovery. We say our wine bars are sweet shops for adults, and Colin and Freddie choose the jars.

Freddie Cobb

Freddie leads Vagabond’s drinks programme, overseeing everything from our wine lists to the experimental batches coming out of our London winery in Battersea. His career has spanned vineyards, cellars, importers and buyers, giving him a rare full view of how wine makes its journey from grape to glass.

Born in Porto, Freddie spent summers in the Douro Valley before studying science at Edinburgh and then completing a Masters in Oenology and Viticulture at Montpellier. That blend of scientific rigour and hands on vineyard experience means he understands wine in both theory and practice.

Freddie has been central to making Vagabond’s range one of the most adventurous in the country. Under his watch we have introduced wines from unexpected places like Ukraine, Belgium and Armenia, embraced skin contact whites long before they became fashionable, and developed our own award winning wines from Battersea. Our Solera Batch 002 even won Best English Still Wine at the WineGB Awards. He has also been recognised personally as one of the most influential people in UK drinks retail.

And yet his proudest achievement? Being crowned as Berkshire under 9 short tennis champion, where he finally beat his nemesis Sebastian.

Colin Thorne ##

Colin was our very first hire back in 2010. Employee number two on the payroll, but number one in helping define the Vagabond way of buying and talking about wine.

He is the voice behind the tasting notes on our shelves and on this site, and every single wine we pour has passed his palate first. Colin has judged at the Decanter World Wine Awards, sits on IWSC panels, and in 2017 picked up the Drinks Business “Other Side of Life” Award for his engaging, non pretentious approach to wine. Under his guidance the Vagabond buying team has been recognised with national awards for innovation and retailing.

What makes Colin stand out is his generosity of knowledge. Spend an hour with him at one of our machines and you will come away with new favourites, fresh perspectives and a story or two you will not forget. He champions the underdog grape and the overlooked region, always hunting for something that will surprise and delight.

Away from the bars, Colin is most often spotted zipping across London (and far, far beyond) on his bike, or guiding visiting winemakers on legendary beer crawls through the city. He insists it is all part of the job. They tend to agree.