Bacchus PLDC

Meet Co-founder Trond Rornes

Trond Rornes is the co-founder of Bacchus Wines PLDC Limited. He has enjoyed an illustrious career, having been university educated in Norway & USA, culminating with an MBA in Finance & Marketing. He has had the pleasure of leading teams for Novo Nordisk in Denmark for ten years, and after moving to England in 2000, he ran an Irish Chemical company. Trond later co-founded CardsSafe Ltd. in 2003 to help hospitality and leisure businesses securely hold their customers’ tabs and hires and increase their overall spending.

Trond enjoys the finer things in life as often as he possibly can. From travel to golf to gastronomy, wine has always been at the epicentre of fun for him. His favourite wines, he argues, come from France. But of course, which one he prefers will depend on what he’s doing, where he is and who with. If he were forced to choose a wine region, it would have to be the Rhone Valley and its extension into Burgundy. But that would be grossly unfair to beautiful wines from the Bordeaux region and select areas in southern France.

Trond has always appreciated wines. Not necessarily the “finest wines known to humanity”, although they are rather good, but wines of character, provenance and note. When his old CFO colleague from Denmark visited him in England in 2002, he invited Trond and his wife Lisa to join his wine club. The members would spend long weekends each year visiting wine producers from all over France.
Eager about wines, travel, and adventure, Trond did not hesitate to accept the membership of ‘Friends of Bacchus Society’, which in 2022, will celebrate its 20th year.

One of Trond most notable experiences with wine goes back to an early afternoon some years ago. Sitting in his office, a friend called to ask if he was busy. Of course, he was, but curiosity got the better of him. His friend told him that he had just opened two bottles of vintage Chateau Latour and wondered if Trond might help him sample these. In less than ten minutes, Trond was in his kitchen, and the rest is joyful history.

For more than forty years, Trond has conducted and participated in many business meetings for lunch and dinner, with good wines paired with good food. This initial exposure quickly led to more wine being enjoyed for family dinners and, since he entertains a lot, his friends and guests also seem happiest when served various wines with their meals.

After years of discussions and tastings, Trond and Pierre-Loup decided to launch Bacchus Wines PLDC Ltd. during the COVID pandemic. One reason was their mutual respect and passion for viniculture, and the second appeared a no-brainer. Considering that ninety-five per cent of all CardsSafe customers operate in the hospitality industry, the combination with Pierre-Loup’s expertise and associations with Chateau Paranchere made this an obvious and enjoyable opportunity.