Venter outlines Saracens rebuild over wine tasting in north London

Brendan Venter, Saracens’ head of rugby culture and wine consultant, set out his plan to rebuild the club to win a Premiership and led a blind wine tasting in Saracens’ home dressing room in north London on 21 October 2026 as part of what became a charm offensive.

Venter’s temporary change of job title from director of rugby to head of rugby culture and wine consultant came amid a difficult period for the club, which this week issued a fierce statement defending itself. Saracens were fined after Premiership Rugby executives judged Venter had been avoiding media obligations; the team has produced mixed results this season and the performance against Sale was watched by a worryingly sparse crowd. The club also sacked 21-year-old Totoa Auvaa after his latest brush with the law, and Saracens opened their doors for the event, welcoming senior figures including Owen Farrell, Ben Earl and George Martin and displaying dozens of bottles of red.

Venter outlined three reasons for his reluctance to fulfil media duties: a dislike of what he described as the banality of post-match questioning, a desire to promote coaches such as Joe Shaw, and a concern he could not guarantee he would "bite his lip and avoid disciplinary proceedings". He accepted that events had "played out regrettably" and agreed to discuss matters in the dressing room setting. During the session he defended his approach to selection and coaching as part of a wider rebuild.

Venter spoke at length about wine and its parallels with rugby. "You get to explore wine," he says. "It’s like rugby, you’re never going to beat rugby, there are always better ideas and different permutations. I know I’ll never master either of them. Just when you think you’ve got it, you don’t have it and it slips away. Just when you think you’ve figured it out then you are humbled."

He said the club used blind tasting during pre-season to avoid preconceptions and to give players a chance to earn selection on merit. "We are so subjective as human beings," adds Venter. "We can’t help it. We see things, we hear things, and we are influenced. When I tell you this wine costs £100, or it’s this fancy label, or it’s this old, or it comes from this country, you will think it is a good wine."

Venter described the lesson as practical for the squad: "The lesson was brilliant for [the players] that day. I am not going to know how much you earn. I don’t want to know how old you are. I’m going to measure you by how you taste, and it was for the players then to get an opportunity to get a seat at the table. If you’ve got a seat at the table, you are going to be up for selection." He also mapped grape varieties and national styles to playing roles, saying: "Cabernet is the base of most Bordeaux, he says, and as a result, represents the defence. Merlot, by virtue of being softer, is the attack. Cabernet franc represents kicking, petit verdot and malbec the unseen work that knits everything together. South Africa wines, in Venter’s eyes, are big, meaty and they’re the props. "The Italians would without doubt be the wings, the flamboyant style," he says. "The French would be the centres, the same thing, the Aussies would be the meticulous people, the scrum-halves, the fly-halves, the New Zealanders would be the sevens, really tough. And then the Georgians would be the hookers."

The article notes Venter’s standing at Saracens remains high despite indifferent results this season, pointing to the work he did in his first spell at the club that helped develop players including Owen Farrell, Maro Itoje, Jamie George and Mako and Billy Vunipola into the core of England’s dominant side over more than a decade. Venter framed the current task as a long-term project: "In rugby we see today so much, we don’t see the bigger picture," he says. "The bigger picture is developing people over a longer period to try and win a Premiership. We need to build again. If you think about it, we were so good for so long with these superstars. And they’re at the end of their time and we need a new group. They’re not going to fall from the air, we need to develop them."

Farrell, who has taken "his first steps into coaching" according to the piece, backed the different approach during Venter’s second stint: "We’re doing it in a bit of a different way from what we’ve been used to but we feel like that will benefit us in the long run. We did the same thing with the wine tasting and then we went out to train after. I can’t remember if it was one of our best sessions. Not because I had too much! He’s very clear and makes it about what we’re doing now – not about what’s been before."

Time will tell if Venter’s second stint is a success but in wine, there tends to be truth.