After winning caps for Scottish schools and the under 19s, Hamish Martin was looking forward to a successful rugby career until a chance encounter with a portly opponent in 1990 changed the young army officer cadet�s life irrevocably.

After winning caps for Scottish schools and the under 19s, Hamish Martin was looking forward to a successful rugby career until a chance encounter with a portly opponent in 1990 changed the young army officer cadet's life irrevocably.

"I just went straight in, the guy had tackled me, he had one leg (of mine) but I thought I could break free and carry on, but he was a small stout man and he was not going to let go and my leg just snapped."

After suffering plenty of injuries, including a punctured kidney, Martin thought little of the accident at the time.

Within a week, however, the full import became painfully clear.

The snap he had heard was the sound of his cruciate ligament breaking and the beginning of the end of his short army career.

"That was it, they said no more rugby for you and I'm afraid we can't have you in the army'."

With his career in tatters after just six months and only a tiny army pension to rely on, the engineering and marketing graduate faced a pretty bleak future.

But Martin, who talks with a resolutely cheery air, says he did not let the setback get him down too much.

"I was fairly gutted, I suppose, but I've always been a great believer that things happen for a reason."

In his case it soon became apparent that the reason was wine, a drink with which he had been enjoying a love affair since falling for the charms of the grape during a summer spent in the Loire Valley in France.

"I did not have to look hard for the wine trade."

Some 18 years later, as the owner and managing director of Inverarity Vaults, the wine merchant, Martin has one of the most sought-after jobs in the Scottish wine business.

The company which he founded with his father in 1993 distributes around 700 wines from its base in Symington, Lanarkshire. It can claim to be one of the biggest independents in the UK.

No wonder that when we meet in a busy city centre cafe Martin, who turned 40 this year, exudes satisfaction.

Dressed in a colourfully bold take on the classic businessman's striped shirt, Martin is having no truck with suggestions that firms like his should be regarding the prospect of a sustained slowdown in consumer spending with concern.

"I have no space for negativity," he says.

Martin has just demonstrated his confidence by completing the acquisition of a prominent rival, Tim Morrison Fine Wines, from the eponymous Ayrshire businessman, for an undisclosed sum.

He believes the deal, which will allow the firm to add wines and customers to its roster, will help Inverarity achieve its target of growing sales by 25%, to £8.5m, in the current year.

Just eight months ago Martin completed what looked like a gutsy move by moving Inverarity into the retail trade by opening an outlet in a Victorian basement on Glasgow's Bath Street.

The move came after he was approached by private clients who wanted to buy wines, and was not the result of any sophisticated strategic thinking.

"It was not done according to an elaborate business plan but instinctively."

One would have thought the timing of the shop's opening, amid growing signs that the credit crunch was increasingly impacting upon people's lives, could have been better timed.

Martin made the move despite warnings that selling direct to the public could alienate the hoteliers and restaurateurs who were his clients. However, after enjoying a bumper first month in December followed by a quieter January, the store has gone great guns.

Rather than alienating clients, Martin has helped them broaden their reach by holding joint marketing events. Through initiatives like tasting events with games such as "wine man's bluff" and corporate evenings, Martin has tried to reach a wider audience.

In addition to offering wines ranging in price from £5.29 to Chateau Petrus at £729 a pop, the shop sells fine cigars and glassware and displays a range of art.

Martin insists: "There's no stuffiness. My ideal clientele is just someone who wants to buy wine, who has an interest in it; I couldn't care what they buy."

While this may sound like the patter of a smooth salesman, Martin's unabashed enthusiasm for his subject lends credibility to his talk. The way he tells it, the wine trade would be a hard business not to like.

Having turned his back on a potentially bright future at Oddbins, after winning a place on the drinks chain's graduate trainee scheme, Martin learned his subject the hard way.

He combined studying for a wine diploma with working as a salesman for French firm Champagne and Chateaux.

As his basic salary was just £200 a month, every penny of commission was valuable. But with London clients unlikely to give you more than 10 minutes to make a sell, with no small talk or cups of coffee on offer, life was challenging.

He jumped at the chance to move back home to Scotland to help his father, a former production director at drinks giant Diageo, develop a business producing and selling whisky.

Given Martin's enthusiasm, moving into wine was a natural progression.

After starting with an unfashionable rosé, Inverarity won the rights to distribute a range of wines from respected growers such as Jaboulet.

Building up the client base involved travelling the length and breadth of Scotland, from Helmsdale to Stranraer, in a beaten-up Land Rover.

"It was wonderful, not like London. You have a relationship, you sit down, you get to know people, you have a coffee, a piece of shortbread and a chat. I just loved it.

"Selling a product I love, dealing with good people and sharing a common interest in something."

With a client base that includes leading restaurants and hotels across Scotland, Martin's wine list and enthusiasm appears to have gone down well.

He seems to be especially pleased that the success has been cemented after he decided to move the business out of Edinburgh in 1997 to run it from the countryside Both his father and lawyer said Inverarity should stay in the city.

"It was one of the best things I did as if I had stayed I would have been an Edinburgh merchant but I am a Scottish business."

Other benefits for the father of three young children who "adores" gardening include the fact that work is a three-minute walk from his home in the country.

Martin believes Inverarity could expand to cover the north of England without risking losing the control over all elements of the business which he believes is essential to maintaining the quality of the brand.

While there is no grand plan, the art-loving Martin says he would like to find other ways to express himself.

But whatever the future holds, working at the weekend is not on the agenda.