INSIDERS
Simon Berry
We had a shop front that if it could talk would have said go away. It was intimidating and if you were not wearing a pinstripe suit or couldn’t pronounce things you thought you would be sent away. – but behind that we had fantastic staff precisely to help those who didn’t know anything about wine. You need to know your wine when shopping at a supermarket but buying from us is all about getting expert help.” Salvation came in the unlikely form of winning a bid to open a wine shop at London’s Heathrow airport. “I saw this as a chance to reinvent ourselves,” explains Berry. “We have always had a philosophy that the wine merchant should be the closest link between those who make wines and the people who drink them so we realised it wasn’t important what we looked like at Heathrow but who we had working there.” The airport concession taught a valuable lesson, says Berry. “We thought we would sell to English businessmen travelling abroad but it was the opposite – most had never seen the shop in St James’s Street and we quickly discovered that the world was full of people fascinated by wine. Afterwards we went on to open in Hong Kong, Dublin and then a bit later in Tokyo. Our website also came out of this experience.” The company’s online presence proved an inspired move drawing even more new customers thanks to early investment in an easy-to-use interface with something for everyone from basic information, podcasts and recipe matching to highly specialised reports. “We got into websites very early, around 1994” says Berry. “We didn’t have a business plan, a budget or forecasts...but found it was the answer for people who were terrified about coming into the shop. In cyberspace no one sees you blush. And so that is what it did for us.” Berry says the website also gave them a unique insight into how people bought online. “We also found out that people only bought after the 7th time of coming to the website so we decided to give them 8 reasons to come back. We’ve drawn people in from different angles providing everyone from a novice to expert with a reason to keep coming back. We’ve gone from an intimidating Georgian shopfront to a website with security but anonymity. If you can be intelligent about
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how you do it you can reinvent yourself.” “It is very simple actually,” he adds. “The heritage side comes from time and you can’t escape it. The trick is to understand what is at the centre of all that. The first thing you learn is that you only last if you keep changing. But it is important to know what you are at your core.” But awards and accolades (the website is the second-most visited wine site in the world) are no reason to sit back and relax or to move away completely from what you are at the core, observes Berry. “We have to continue to change and take into account that every culture has a different take on what we do – so we try to be as simple as possible and make sure that the people who want to have access to it, do. Some people take it all very seriously but there is nothing worse than a wine bore. It is about fun – after all it is only fermented grape juice.” Other recent business endeavours include collaboration with Dunhill’s flagship shop in HK’s Princes’ Building in Central which Berry describes as “a very good piece of shop design combining modern and tradition, so a perfect match,” and managing the Financial Times’ wine club. The latter has significantly raised BBR’s profile, especially in other parts of the world, notes Berry. “We didn’t realise quite what an impact our advertising through them would be – it has had much more of a result than we expected.” Despite these very modern developments, heritage remains the essence of BBR’s business. “Our team is completely focused,” says Berry. “We encourage different ideas but we are very clear about the ones we do and don’t do. For every one we do choose we reject about 10. Some we choose are not always money generating but we understand it is about supporting the rest of the business. This is the advantage of a family business; instead of thinking about profits next month you’re thinking about your children. It really is about a culture of passion.”
Wine to buy for: INVESTMENT: 2008 COS D’ESTOURNEL, ST. ESTÈPHE, BORDEAUX. “With Cos D’Estournel one arguably finds equal quality to a first growth for the price of a second growth wine.” DINNER PARTY: 2008 GROSVENOR BLANC DE BLANCS, RIDGEVIEW ESTATE. “The Sussex Downs in England continue to provide a rich seam of inspiration for the patriotic fizz drinker.” HOME: BERRYS’ EXTRA ORDINARY CLARET. “Our Extra Ordinary Claret is sourced from one of Bordeaux’s legendary figures, JeanMichel Cazes, proprietor of the great Ch. Lynch Bages.”
Right: 1. The storefront in London 2 & 3. Books and bottles from times gone by 4. History captured forever at BBR