John “Fingers” Fingleton 15 September 1948–24 June 2025.
“Fingers” was a long-standing friend and supporter of @ardenfinewines.
A few years ago AFW purchased some 1970 Château Léoville Barton from a private cellar in London.
I mentioned this to Fingers and it turned out that he had been in Bordeaux during the 1970 harvest, accompanying his brother who was the then wine correspondent of the @spectator1828.
They were at Léoville Barton as its 1970 wine was being born.
Like the Fingleton bothers, Léoville’s owner Anthony Barton of @bartonwine had been at @stoweschool – three “Old Stoics”.
I suggested to Fingers that we open and share a bottle of the 1970 Léoville Barton. He very generously organised a splendid dinner at the @savileclub at which we drank the ’70.
A couple of years later, Fingers asked me if I could find a bottle of 1923 wine to commemorate the centenary of Stowe school.
I found a bottle of 1923 @bouchard_aine_fils Richebourg, which was placed into a smart case and presented to the headmaster (for display, not drinking…).
My friend Patrick Kidd noted in his obituary of Fingers in @theobserveruk :
“In his day job as an auctioneer Fingleton handled some 500 auctions, raising £11m for charities from the Alzheimer’s Society to World Horse Welfare… Broad in the beam and as loud in his opinions as in his multicoloured blazers, the man universally known as ‘Fingers’ was hard to miss. When he grew whiskers later in life, he became the most familiar bearded, corpulent man seen at Lord’s since WG Grace”.
I will miss him.
