Sunday Brunch Wine Expert launches candle range that evokes travels through France

By Donna Richardson

When you embark on a journey, there’s a desire to bottle up the enchanting aromas of the delicious food, exquisite drinks, vibrant surroundings, and the unique atmosphere. When it comes to wine, those moments can now be reignited as an award-winning wine writer has ingeniously crafted a way to capture these evocative scents in sustainable candles. Each time you light one of these candles, you are whisked away to those delightful destinations, evoking cherished memories and transporting you back to moments filled with joy and sensory wonder.

Ouverture London, the British luxury fragrance house founded by writer and broadcaster Aleesha Hansel, has launched its debut candle collection. An innovative line marrying the sophistication of fine wine culture with high-end scent craftsmanship, all with sustainability at its core -where fine wine meets fine fragrance.

Founder Aleesha Hansel, who is also currently writing a book, hails from Birmingham
but now lives in London. She draws on her years of experience as a wine judge and
storyteller, and just last week, appeared on Sunday Brunch as a wine expert.
Aleesha appeared on Sunday Brunch on 1 June.

She balances her writing and broadcasting with her new venture, Ouverture London,
which has recently launched a new candle range called the Terroir Collection,
evoking memories of good times shared over wine. Ouverture London’s first collection is all about evoking scents inspired by the terroir of France, with other countries soon to follow.

Her fragrance journey began when she was travelling around Europe in a campervan with her parents as a child. Aleesha was born in Good Hope, then lived in Aston and Sutton and is a proud Brummie and one of the UK’s only black wine writers.

She said: “No one looks like me in the wine industry. There simply aren’t many people of colour, there aren’t many women or working-class people, and especially there are not many people with accents,” she said.

“Wine wasn’t traditionally drunk in my family. My dad’s family is Jamaican, and my mum’s Indian so it wasn’t part of the culture from either side, so I came into the industry with no preconceptions or pretentiousness,” she said.

“One of the first experiences I had with wine, was while on holiday as my parents were driving us around France in a campervan. The French have a more relaxed attitude towards wine, and
I recall that they had honesty boxes at the end of the fields. My dad would be
particularly happy when he saw wine left at one, so I guess that solidified the idea of
France feels fun, free and romantic, and wine is a part of that.”

Coming from inner-city Birmingham, exploring new, non-urban landscapes was a sensory journey like no other, and she soon found herself drawn to the food and drinks on offer, something which she says allows you to understand the heart of a country and its people like nothing else can. After school, she went to work in TV, but after coming to a career crossroads, decided to pursue a different direction and worked her way up in the industry as an oenophile.

She said: “I had to work from the bottom up once more – and started again stacking shelves in a wine shop. After completing my wine qualifications, I left and worked at a wine awards competition that had a sister magazine. I’d always liked the stories about wines that I could tell customers when working at the wine shop, and so when I realised this was essentially the same as what the writers were doing at the magazine – that was it. Having not gone to uni, I didn’t have any writing experience, and so I went back to school and did a journalism diploma, and somehow ended up working at a newspaper in Spain, and managed to convince my editor to give me a wine column. Coming back to the UK, I went back to that first magazine and that was that.

“Following on, I secured some TV gigs such as being on Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh for 6 series, and have recently joined Sunday Brunch, making my first appearance on June 1.”

However, Aleesha decided that she wanted to capture the essence of wine not just in words, but in another format too, so she embarked on her newest venture: the UK’s first luxury wine-inspired candle range, with the first collection being the Terroir Collection. In the context of wine, “terroir” refers to all the unique characteristics that can influence a wine, and make it taste specific to that place; the soil, how much sunlight, rainfall, and the slope’s orientation etc, all of which contribute to the distinct flavour of the wine.

“Who’d have known all this would come from seeing fields 25 years ago when I was being driven through France?” she said.

“The scents are based on appellations in France and the 1000s of wines I’ve been lucky to try from these regions over my career as a wine writer, and the essence of what I think makes those wines special and unique.

“The idea of a candle smelling like wine, however, is not new. No doubt you’ve seen mulled wine, Prosecco and Chardonnay scented candles in the shop, but they don’t have a wine-expert’s input and are just bought off the shelf, and as such, all smell the same”

“Each one of my candles takes a year for me to perfect, and I take my time because it’s really personal to me, all about capturing the feelings, memories, places, and people.

“That’s what brought me into wine – just enjoying it with friends, or as part of the moment. I think that’s what makes me a little unique in the wine industry, as my family doesn’t come from a wine-drinking lineage so I didn’t come to the sector with preset ideas and dogmas. I had no ‘this or this is better’ it was just all about those feelings and memories.

“I completely learned everything from scratch, and as France inspired me initially, it made sense that France is where I chose focus the first collection.

“I hope these candles remind you of those stories, like mine of pootling around France – moments you savour, and memories of travelling. It’s the foundation of my brand and one of the reasons it’s called Ouverture London – which was inspired by Marcel Proust and his most famous literary description of linking scent and memory.

“Each one of my candles takes a year for me to perfect, and I take my time because
it’s really personal to me, all about capturing the feelings, memories, places, and
people.

“That’s what brought me into wine – just enjoying it with friends, or as part of the
moment. I think that’s what makes me a little unique in the wine industry, as my
family doesn’t come from a wine-drinking lineage so I didn’t come to the sector with preset ideas and dogmas. I had no ‘this or this is better’ it was just all about those feelings and memories.

“I completely learned everything from scratch, and as France inspired me initially, it made sense that France is where I chose focus the first collection.

“I hope these candles remind you of those stories, like mine of pootling around France – moments you savour, and memories of travelling. It’s the foundation of my brand and one of the reasons it’s called Ouverture London – which was inspired by Marcel Proust and his most famous literary description of linking scent and memory.

With this in mind, her Terroir Collection invites candle lovers to journey through the world’s most iconic wine regions via scent, from a sun-drenched Provençal rosé to the elegance of a misty morning in Margaux.

Beyond its evocative aromas and elegant design, Ouverture London offers a redefinition of what sustainable luxury can look (and smell) like.

Sustainable Flame

Each candle is hand-poured in the UK using 100 per cent natural, non-GMO, ProTerra-certified soy wax, lead-free cotton wicks, and phthalate-free fragrances, for a clean, slow-burning experience.

But Ouverture’s sustainability story doesn’t stop there. The candles are poured into custom-designed, engraved brass vessels intended to be cherished, not discarded. Brass is a cradle-to-cradle metal, meaning it is infinitely recyclable with no material loss, unlike glass. Candle refills will soon be available, extending the life of each vessel even further.

This company is dedicated to environmental stewardship. Each order is packaged using paper dyed with petroleum-free vegetable ink and certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. Additionally, all shipping materials, except for the Sellotape, are plastic-free, recyclable, and made from recycled content.

“I didn’t just want these fragrances to evoke some of the great wine regions of the world, I wanted them to reflect their values too,” says Aleesha. “Terroir, provenance, respect for nature – these are the same principles guiding good winemaking and guiding Ouverture London. Our goal is to create luxury without compromise: deeply evocative, but also deeply responsible.”

A collection that tells a story

Each candle in the Terroir Collection captures the spirit of a region through complex, layered scent profiles. Evoking Margaux is a decadent nose of plum and cassis layered with opulent woods, leather, and smoky birch tar, while Evoking Sancerre: is about Green orchard fruits, lime zest, and fresh-cut stems meet chalk, white woods, and soft mus and Evoking Côtes de Provence: Pink grapefruit and crunchy apple, enlivened with sea salt, pink pepper, and sun-bleached woods. Coming soon are: Evoking Meursault, featuring vanilla pod, warm cream, and hazelnut, lifted by white peach and rich benzoin, and Evoking Hermitage, with black cherry and olive softening into suede, garrigue herbs, and a savoury amber base.

All the candles tell a story of Aleesha’s journeys, which makes them perfect gifts for travel lovers. With a burn time of 45+ hours, they ensure a slow, sensorial luxury journey that prolongs the essence of travel, wellness, and relaxation.

Find out more at www.ouverturelondon.com.