Character with a true zest for life

Like most in the trade, Snifter has enjoyed many happy hours in Gordon's Wine Bar in Villiers Street, just off Charing Cross in London.

So he was as sad as anyone to hear of the news of the recent death of Luis Gordon, owner of what is the oldest wine bar in London and former chairman of the family sherry shippers who for more than 200 years remained sole importers of Domecq to Britain.

The father of six died at 69 after losing a four-year fight against cancer.

And one who knew him well was Michael Hardman ­ spokesman for London brewer Young's and a founding memberof Camra ­ who has penned this obituary of his friend.

Gordon, writes Hardman, was an exuberant, gravel-voiced character who bought his historic watering hole in 1972 after a lifetime in the wine trade.

Gordon's Wine Bar drew literary figures like Chesterton, Tennyson and Rudyard Kipling, who wrote The Light that Failed in the room above the bar.

Later its dusky vaults hosted numerous celebrities including Lord (Lawrence) Olivier and Vivien Leigh, drawn by the unobtrusive atmosphere.

During his 30-year ownership, Gordon preserved the bar's special character, its fine wines, old oak casks of port and sherry, memorabilia and crusting walls, even keeping the cobwebs after a six-month closure for a "revamp", a tradition that will continue to be preserved by his family, who have now taken up the mantle.

After school at Downside, where he crashed a gigantic model jet in a ball of flame in the centre of the 1st XI cricket pitch, Gordon gained his private pilot's licence at just 16 and joined the RAF three years later as a rear-gunner in Shackleton aircraft.

In his early 20s, Gordon joined the family sherry business Luis Gordon & Sons as a salesman and in 1971 became chairman.

The company was sole importer of the Domecq range of sherries.

Under Gordon's reign it became the biggest player in the fast-expanding UK sherry market and received a Royal Warrant from the Queen and also from King Alfonso of Spain.

In the 1960s, the company was among the first to embrace the spirit of corporate entertainment, typically hiring a Comet to take more than 200 guests ­ wine traders, publicans and journalists ­ on wild trips to Jerez.

Typically these three-day marathons would end with a demonstration of small-scale bull fighting testing out young, but fierce animals in a private ring on the Domecq estates.

When Gordon judged his watching guests had sipped enough sherry, he'd invite them to have a go themselves as matadors, roaring with laughter as tipsy hacks staggered about.

After just a year as chairman, his company was floated on the UK stock market and Gordon bought his eponymous wine bar.

Outside business

, Gordon was extremely creative, with a great talent for painting and sculpting.

Throughout his life, Gordon's dynamic entrepreneurial spirit ranged across wonderful eccentricities.

They included a company well ahead of its time in the late '70s, which converted cars from petrol to LPG.

He dabbled with an anti-gravity device powered by electric motors and gyroscopes.

When bored with that, he thundered around his home village after Sunday lunch in his WW2 tank, vintage fire engine or racing car.

His dearest love, though, was wife Wendy, whom he met and fell for when he was only 15.

They were married eight years later and during 47 years together their family extended to six children and 13 grandchildren.

They started their married life at Henfield, Sussex, and returned there 12 years ago.