The Wine Merchant issue 150

THE WINE MERCHANT.

An independent magazine for independent retailers Issue 150, September 2025

Hayward Bros deal means Jeroboams can go national

London merchant set to expand trade sales to parts of the UK it currently misses – and more acquisitions could follow

London merchant Jeroboams is planning to expand its wholesale business beyond its heartland following the acquisition of Hayward Bros.

The deal, which has resulted in the arrival of more than 80 producers in the Jeroboams roster, also sees Hayward Bros’ regional sales team join the business, along with managing director Robert Hayward.

Jeroboams sales director Lucie Parker says: “With this acquisition, we’ve suddenly gained three regional sales people and we now reach more of the country, still through regional wholesalers and indies, which works really well for us.

“The trade side of the business is working well, and there’s definitely room for expansion. We’re very much London and south east based; we work across the whole of England, but in really small ways. So a little bit in the south west, a little bit in Scotland, and not much at all in the north and Midlands.”

Parker says Jeroboams’ trade business has grown to around 40% of its turnover, matching what it achieves from private client sales and roughly double what it takes from its 10 shops.

Jeroboams bought the private client business of fellow London merchant Davy’s last year and Parker says the company is open-minded about

Dog of the month: Cleo Noble Green Wines, Hampton

You might think every town in the Cotswolds has a wine shop, but Hannah and Jamie Breeden spotted a glaring omission. Read about their new venture on page 4.

4 comings & Goings

New indies in Malmesbury, Bristol, Cardiff and Salisbury

13 bright ideas

The indie merchant who draws a crowd with evenings of opera

15 the burning question

Do your customers leave reviews?

Do you encourage them to?

22 merchant profile

We venture into the fabled Aladdin’s cave at D Byrne in Clitheroe

28 retail tips

Experts give us seven examples of best practice for successful sales

34 rob hoult

Rob’s been on holiday, and recommends that you do too

38 buyers trip to tuscany

More indies get the chance to visit Cecchi’s impressive estates

48 supplier bulletin

Essential updates from some of the trade’s best agency businesses

55 Q&A: kim wilson

The North South Wines boss can play the cello, and avoids drains

Jeroboams buys Hayward Bros

making more acquisitions.

“I think it was the end of an era for Robert Hayward,” she says. “He was the last remaining family member working in the business and he’s been doing so much: buying, shipping, selling, running a business, managing a team.

“He said to Matt [Tipping, Jeroboams CEO], ‘I like what I do, but I’m the only one left in the family doing it, and I want to hand over the reins to someone else’. The companies have a similar way of working, being family owned, with similar values.”

Parker adds: “We have an ambition to grow the trade side of the business. I think we all realise this is a really volatile time for the industry, and people are looking to make changes faced with the

additional costs of running a business.

“There are probably people like Robert Hayward who are just thinking, ‘do I have the energy to carry on doing this?’ And so we are definitely open to conversations because we’re lucky enough that we’re able to get financing. It means we can grow, and keep the legacy of other businesses going.”

Former Hayward Bros agencies Maison Jean Loron from Beaujolais, Maison Jaffelin from the Rhône and Kopke port are three of the star names joining the Jeroboams list. Parker says all the agencies that have transferred across will be maintained, and a decision made in the coming year about whether to streamline parts of the portfolio where crossovers occur.

“We can go through it slowly and work out what the best plan of action is, and hopefully keep everyone happy,” Parker adds.

THE WINE MERCHANT MAGAZINE

Editor and Publisher: Graham Holter graham@winemerchantmag.com

Assistant Editor: Claire Harries claire@winemerchantmag.com

Reporter: Jacob Stokes jacob@winemerchantmag.com

Advertising: Sarah Hunnisett sarah@winemerchantmag.com

Accounts: Naomi Young naomi@winemerchantmag.com

Admin and reader liaison: Charlotte Gingell charlotte@winemerchantmag.com

Autumn vines at Moulin à Vent, Beaujolais – home of Maison Jean Loron

Couple fill wine gap in Cotswolds

A new wine shop in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, opened this month.

Jamie and Hannah Breeden, a husbandand-wife team, are behind the launch of The Malmesbury Wine Company.

Jamie’s first foray into wine was with Majestic before heading up the wine, beer and spirits sales division of a food service company but recent redundancy has enticed him back to the retail sector.

“Malmesbury is a very sweet little town,” Jamie says, “and it’s one of the only towns in the Cotswolds that doesn’t have a wine shop. It’s a growing town in terms of population. There’s an enormous new build going up on the Tetbury Road as well as a further two sites, so it’s going to be a wide demographic. The wines we want to offer need to be accessible and we want a really good core range between £10 and £30 and then have some up to the £90 level.”

The couple intend to run tastings, making use of the courtyard when possible, and once licensing is in place, there is potential for some on-trade as well as retail.

“We’ve got a lovely little Grade II listed shop on the high street,” Jamie says. “As soon as we walked in, we said: ‘this is it,’ and we knew we were going to do it at that point.”

Jamie and Hannah are working with North South Wines, Liberty and Boutinot for their core range of 150 wines.

“I haven’t done retail since Majestic,” Jamie adds, “but for us, it just seemed the right the right place at the right time.”

• A new wine shop is coming to Colchester

The local council has approved plans submitted by local firm JL&JA to convert a former vape shop in Wivenhoe into “a beer and wine shop with a higher-end offering”.

A monger of wine as well as cheese

The Welsh Cheese Company is extending its specialism to include wine and is opening a second shop in Cardiff.

Owner Tom Pinder says: “I started the company about eight years ago and as well as selling online and having a physical shop, we branched out into wholesale, supplying restaurants and delis.

“I’ve always been interested in pairings and what the next step might be in terms of championing these Welsh cheeses, which have been at the heart of what we do.

“For the last couple of years in our shop, I’ve run regular pop-up wine and cheese pairing events, and when the opportunity came along to take on additional premises we leapt at the chance.”

Previously a pizza restaurant located opposite Victoria Park in the Welsh capital, the new shop will allow Tom to stock around 120 wines for retail alongside his cheese range.

There will also be an area for drinking in with a capacity of around 22 covers.

Pinder is working on his wine range with

the help of north Wales indie Blas ar Fwyd, and Fine Wines Direct.

“We’ve always sold a little bit of Welsh wine,” he says, “and we work with a few of the Welsh vineyards directly. But it’s exciting to be moving into the world of wine more broadly and elevating both the cheese and wine side of things.”

Lease available for Devon indie

Quay Wines in Kingsbridge, Devon, is on the market.

The lease for the town centre shop, currently held by Simon Luscombe (pictured), is available for £19,999.

The shop relocated from Bosham in West Sussex in 2021, where it had traded as Luscombes Wine Merchants.

The sale is being handled by Everett Masson & Furby, which suggests the premises has scope as a delicatessen and wine bar.

Tom Pinder and his team now have a second Cardiff branch

Museum Wines is on the move

Museum Wines has moved to Salisbury, just over 20 miles away from its original home in the Dorset village of Tarrant Hinton.

Managing director Daniel Grigg admits that footfall had diminished post-Covid and hopes the transition to new premises will usher in a new era for the company.

“We seem to have lost that aspirational middle-class customer who used to come in once a month and spend £200-£300,” he says. “Some of them don’t come in at all anymore, and some still come in but they’re buying bottles rather than boxes.”

The new shop is at Paxton Business Centre, an industrial estate which is a 20-minute walk away from Salisbury city centre, near the train station. There are four dedicated parking spaces and a wellknown local business has already made the move from the high street to the same location.

“Pritchetts Butchers have been in Salisbury for 150 years,” says Grigg. “They moved out of the city centre because the rents and rates keep going up, and they’ve found their footfall is higher [at Paxton

Business Centre] because there’s parking – and, as getting in or out of Salisbury centre can be a bit of a challenge, it’s more convenient.

“I’m sure we’ll inherit some footfall from the butcher straight away, and as the Majestic is a nightmare to get to, hopefully we’ll have a few of their customers coming to us as well.”

Another positive for the team is the office space above the store, which Grigg says will be a boon when it comes to growing the trade side of the business.

“We weren’t planning to move at all,” he says, “but this unit became available and it just happened. We’re going to fancy it up a bit – it’s going to look spectacular as we move forward into the next era of Museum Wines.”

Salisbury’s other independent wine merchant, The Artisan Wine & Spirits Co, recently relocated to a city centre location (The Wine Merchant, August edition).

• Cornish indie Scarlet Wines is set to open a branch in Falmouth. The retailer and wholesaler, established in 2009 by Jon and Sarah Keast, has applied for a premises licence for a shop in Arwenack Street for drinking in as well as off-sales. Scarlet already has premises in St Ives.

Bacchus

Nuts not needed

A worried customer has contacted a wine shop in the heart of England in advance of a private tasting they have booked. “I’ve taken a look at each of the wines, and they all look fine, but please can I just check number 8?” the message starts. “On your website the description says ‘with subtle flavours of toasted hazelnuts’. One of the people tasting has a nut allergy – are there actually hazelnuts in this? It may be best if we replace number 8 with something else, just to be sure.”

Wine with your mail, sir?

The St Helens Star carries an interesting retrospective piece about a wine merchant in the town which traded for 115 years until closing in the early 70s. Gallies was a pioneering indie and an early example of a hybrid, selling wine for consumption on the premises as well as off, explains local historian Stephen Wainwright. As with many merchants in Victorian times, home deliveries were all part of the service. But Gallies went further, obtaining a royal charter to deliver the mail as well as wine (and spirits that it bottled under its own name).

When Gallies celebrated its centenary, one of the directors reflected on about how drinking habits had changed. “The majority of men on their way home from a hard day’s work used to call in and buy a bottle of claret or similar red wine to enjoy with their tea,” he said. “Of course, high duty killed this practice in about 1933.”

Covid confusion

The Canarian Weekly was quick to sound the alarm when phylloxera made its unwanted debut in Tenerife a few weeks ago. The insect, the paper informed its readers, is “often referred to as the Covid of the grapevine”. Hmm. Phylloxera made its first appearance in European vineyards in the 1860s –almost 170 years before Covid emerged in Wuhan. And it’s definitely more of an aphid than a virus. But point taken.

Daniel Grigg at the original store in Tarrant Hinton

Turner departs Cambridge Wine

Cambridge Wine Merchants boss Hal Wilson says he is “excited to be in sole control of the business” following the resignation of chairman Brett Turner.

Wilson and Turner, who met at Cambridge University in 1990, set up Cambridge Wine together three years later. As partners they built one of the independent trade’s most successful businesses though in later years the relationship is known to have been strained.

Wilson (pictured) reports that trade is solid despite the challenging climate.

“We are working very hard as a management team to build on the success of our core activities and look for new opportunities in the market,” he says.

“However tough conditions appear, there are always new avenues to explore and improvements to be made to existing product ranges and services.

“We are investing in our people and putting them at the heart of what we do, which I believe will continue to make our customer service exemplary.”

Retirement calls for Dronfield duo

Dronfield Wine World in Derbyshire, which first opened its doors in 2016, closed at the end of August.

Owner Jane Taylor launched the business after a career in teaching and has been trading from the current site since 2023.

“It’s been an absolutely fabulous decade,” she says, “but our lease came up for renewal and although Richard and I thought about going on for another year, we just looked at each other and said, ‘no, let’s do it now’.

“I’ll remember all the lovely people I’ve met. We’ve made a lot of good friends through the shop over the years and we’ve become quite good friends with really amazing winemakers. I’m just so excited about what’s coming next.”

The couple will kick off their retirement with a cycling trip along the Garonne and Midi canals, followed by a two-month stay in Richard’s native Chile, visiting family. Both trips will no doubt include visits with winemakers as they have plans to remain in the wine trade, perhaps as ambassadors for Chilean wineries. There are definite plans for a wine society.

“We have a database of loyal customers

who are gutted to see us go,” says Richard. “We will be working with our suppliers and passing on lists from them to our subscribers to choose any cases they wish. We would simply pass on the wine to them.

“Subscribers might get an email once a month, every two months, or whenever we want to, really. Who knows, it could grow into a fully-fledged wine society with tastings etc but we’ll see how that evolves, if members are willing to take it further. After all, we’re retiring!”

Tudor Peacock admits defeat

The Tudor Peacock in Chilham, Kent, ceased trading in September.

The English wine specialist opened in its Grade II-listed premises in 2023 after much negotiating with local residents, some of whom became shareholders, but not everything was resolved.

Co-founder Greg Taylor explains: “We faced planning conditions that were extremely challenging, including the prohibition on outdoor seating.”

The council finally granted permission last year, but only until 7pm.

“The pub and the tea shop have outdoor seating on Chilham Square with no restrictions,” Taylor points out.

“Our staff have to stop what they are doing at 7pm and ask the customers seated outside to vacate their chairs and tables, with the result that they simply walk across to the pub to remain outdoors.

“We hope that a future owner/operator can continue to offer outdoor seating with more reasonable hours.”

The co-founders of The Tudor Peacock, including Taylor and Nick Mogford, owned 60% of the business with the remainder held by around 25 investors. They are hoping to find a buyer who can get the business trading again following its closure on September 7.

Jane and Richard plan to travel

Buckle up for new Bristol wine shop

Totterdown in Bristol is now home to Carouse Wines.

It’s owned by Faye Buckle, former wine PR at Westbury Communications.

“It’s been my aim to have something where people can visit in south Bristol,” she says. “Totterdown is a little neighbourhood area and there are lots of little independents popping up, which fills me with a little bit of reassurance, but it’s still an up-and-coming place.

“It’s been quite a long process to get to this point and I could have pulled the plug so many times, but I thought, ‘if I don’t do

it, someone else is going to get in there’.

“It’s a good space to work with and it’s been all hands on deck since I got the keys. It was a cookery school so we’ve had to completely turn it around.

“It’s basically one big room and on one side there’ll be the shelving and the library of wine, and the other side will be for people to sit down and have a drink.

“I want to push the wine by the glass to help the retail side and get people trying new things, but while setting all this up it’s become clear just how much the on-trade will help tick everything over. I’m super happy I ended up getting a unit that is big enough to accommodate retail and on-trade.”

Buckle estimates there will be capacity for 26 people, including the outside space, and she will be serving small plates of

charcuterie, cheese and olives.

She’s opened with a wine range sourced mainly from Liberty and Bancroft. “They’ve been so supportive,” says Buckle, “and as I’m a little bit biased to the whites of Italy I’m also working with Passione Vino and Vinanima. I want to work with Astrum, Indigo and Flint as we go, and once money starts coming in I can start meeting those minimum orders.

“I want to have lots of things on offer because I know that a lot of my friends in Bristol who work in the trade are always seeking new places to have a glass, a natter, and get a bit nerdy on the ins and outs of the wines they’re drinking. I’m aiming to be that spot where people feel they can go and sit for a couple of hours and try some different things.”

QUIZ TIME

With Flying Füchs

1. Until 2009, what was the name given to the vinho regional wines of Lisboa?

(a) Estremadura (b) Estonteante (c) Escaldante

2. Which one of these grape varieties is not a direct parent of Cabernet Sauvignon?

(a) Sauvignon Blanc (b) Cabernet Franc (c) Malbec

3. In which country would you find the wine regions of Villány, Balatonboglár and Eger?

4. Which classic Dickens novel begins with a wine cask spilling into the streets of a city?

5. In France, how far away is Ermitage from Hermitage? (a) 0km (b) 12km (c) 120km

Answers on page 21

Faye Buckle formerly worked in PR for Westbury Communications

Bryn is fine wine sales manager at Alliance Wine

This is my second stint at Alliance; I originally joined in 2020. I was tempted away briefly but I’m glad to be back and, with the takeover of H2Vin, we’ve got 500 news wines that I’m learning about. The Alliance portfolio is jam packed full of great stuff and the wines from H2Vin have filled in the gaps with some absolute dynamite stuff from the Loire, top end Burgundy and Rhône.

I have a fine wine focus, so my job is to present the top end of our portfolio to our customers. These are wines of exceptional quality and unparallelled finesse. What a joy! Indie wine shops can’t, and don’t need to, compete with supermarkets, and I don’t think there’s ever been a more important time to give fine wines this exposure.

I trained as an opera singer but for a myriad of reasons I fell out of love with opera My wine career started with a parttime job at the Oddbins round the corner from the Royal Welsh College of Music

in Cardiff. I went on to work at Majestic and Avery’s before deciding I wanted to know how to make wine. I did a harvest in Bordeaux and two in South Africa before working for DBM Wines.

I had my first taste of Domaine Guiberteau Saumur Blanc earlier this year. His wines are so pure and so finely balanced. The Saumur Blanc is absolutely breathtaking. It needs a couple of years but my god is it all there! So much fruit and rapier-like acidity. As time goes on it will take on a bit of weight and creaminess –I’m so excited by this wine.

I’m a huge fan of Bodegas Bernabeleva and the Camino de Navaherreros Tinto is an everyday favourite of mine. It’s beautifully light with some cranberry, citrus peel and a hint of lavender. Chill it down slightly and it’s the perfect summer red. It’s a little under my price remit, but who cares? Any indie who stocks that is a lucky, lucky person indeed.

The afternoon I spent with Katia at San Polino Vineyard (pictured below) is probably the most mind-bending experience I’ve had in the wine trade. Katia farms biodynamically but that only scratches the surface of what she does. Her husband used to map the Amazon rainforest as a career and they have applied some of the things he learned from that to their little plots in Montalcino. The vineyards are teeming with nature, vitality and health and the wines are absolutely sensational. I’m very, very happy to be working with those wines again.

I was once on a long drive from Leeds to London with a Champagne producer. I discovered he had a particular fascination with heavy metal, so we had an absolute blast in the car rocking out to ridiculously loud metal. I’m also the proud owner of two beautiful crystal decanters that one visiting winemaker gave to me. We were travelling through north Wales when we realised we had a mutual love of charity shops. We found some really cool things and she was so excited to buy the decanters but as she knew she couldn’t fit them in her luggage, she presented them to me.

I’ve played at Glastonbury twice. I was part of a group called the Roaring Trowmen and we did most of the major folk festivals around the UK. Like my wine collection, my musical taste is varied. It ranges from Gregorian chant all the way to drum and bass and everything in between.

I live a reasonably quiet life. My wife and I love to cook. I enjoy rugby, but certainly more watching now than playing; my body is a bit of a car crash. Weirdly I love computer gaming. I’m looking forward to two weeks camping in Brittany – plenty of mussels and Muscadet.

506060

Norfolk shop No 2 for Marta Vine

Specialist importer Marta Vine has opened a second shop. VinedMe at Thornham in north Norfolk launched in July and co-owner Kevin Bowers says the difference between the new site and the original shop is notable.

“VinedMe at Walsingham is a real community hub,” he says. “People like coming in and meeting each other, sitting down, having a drink and enjoying music and things, whereas Thornham has much more of a shop feel.

“We sell very well off the shelf by the day, and then we have people that come in and sit down have a glass of wine, but it’s not such a big proportion of the business as it is at Walsingham.”

At Thornham, footfall is enhanced by the advantage of being part of something larger, offering a destination experience.

“There’s a farm shop, a fish shop, a taco restaurant, a garden centre and some lifestyle places including an antiques shop,” reports Bowers. “There’s a really good bakery right next to us which wins lots of awards and between us we pull a lot of customers to our corner of the retail park.

“We’ve got a really good team at Thornham, some really experienced people that have a good mix of hospitality and wine backgrounds, and it’s all been very

successful on that front.”

Opening in the height of a hot summer, Bowers accepts the Thornham shop may well see a slight drop in business once the season comes to an end.

“There are places at that end of the coast where people live more permanently and I think we’re already creating good bonds with these customers, and I hope they’ll continue to be regulars over the quieter months,” he says.

Marta Vine is well known as a specialist importer of Portuguese wines and Bowers says it also imports from Croatia, Austria, New Zealand, Argentina, France, Spain and Germany.

“I’d say about two thirds of the wine in the shop is Marta Vine wine as we have a lot of bases covered,” he says. “We don’t import anything from Italy, so we use For the Love of Wine as our main Italian supplier. We also get a little bit from Thorman Hunt and Bancroft.”

It’s almost two years since the couple entered the retail market with VinedMe, and Bowers admits that ideally they would have waited another year before further expansion. But they’d had this particular spot in their sights and the opportunity presented itself.

“We’re in, we’re settled and it was the right decision. I wouldn’t say we’re looking for anything else for at least another couple of years, but if something pops up in a similar sort of location, I can always have my arm twisted,” he says.

The VinedMe shop in Thornham

Teularju Barbagia Rosso 2022

Sardinia has become the epicentre for fine Vermentino. But it also has a claim to the origins of Grenache, or Cannonau as it is known on the island. In the mountains of Barbagia, around the town of Mamoiada, it finds its most historic and profound expression. Crunchy red berry fruit and lightly scorched flowers coil around a clinching mineral core.

RRP: £55 ABV: 13% Passione Vino (020 3487 0600) passionevino.co.uk

Triangle Wines Sanha Branco 2021

Dirk Niepoort has worked these 80-year-old Bairrada vines of Bical, Maria Gomes and Cercial since 2010, and believes this is some of Portugal’s best terroir. Racing with sea salt and brine, cedar sap and citrus, almond skin and vetiver. There’s weight and texture but not at the expense of direction: this is vertical.

RRP: £25 ABV: 12% Indigo Wine (020 7733 8391) indigowine.com

Maison Brotte

Les Eglantiers Tavel Rosé 2024

Perhaps retailers would find it easier to sell this as a light red than as the unashamedly-lurid Rhône rosé that it is. But then again, don’t consumers deserve to understand that there’s far more to pink wines than the Provence template? A generous and fleshy Grenache-Syrah blend with red-berry intensity.

RRP: £17.50 ABV: 13%

North South Wines (020 3871 9210) northsouthwines.co.uk

Rathfinny Brut Rosé 2019

Rathfinny’s wines are typically as bracing as a hike along the Seven Sisters cliffs that inspire the label design, and this is no exception. There’s a piercing acidity to the 60% Pinot Noir, 22% Chardonnay and 18% Pinot Meunier blend, with sour cherries and soft red fruit high in the mix. Spicy seafood would suit it.

RRP: £43 ABV: 11.5%

Liberty Wines (020 7720 5350) libertywines.co.uk

Rall Swartland Syrah 2022

Black olives cut with a bloody iron blade. Blueberries and mulberries crushed inside a leather-lined cigar box. Violets, black pepper and sprigs of thyme smashed against granite. While Côte-Rôtie sits in a rocking chair reciting poetry about the French revolution, this is partying, free-climbing, shooting elk and setting stuff on fire. It’s great.

RRP: £29.95 ABV: 12.5%

Justerini & Brooks (020 7484 6430)

justerinis.com

Callejo Finca Valdelroble Tinto Fino Merlot 2021

The Ribera del Duero plateau on which the grapes were grown, at 930 metres, was once earmarked as a landing strip. Thankfully, Tinto Fino and Merlot were allowed to thrive. The oak starts loud and proud but soon mellows as hearty fruit reveals itself, with grainy tannins and reassuring earthiness in a supporting role.

RRP: £37 ABV: 14.5%

Moreno Wines (0161 908 1383) morenowines.co.uk

Axle Chenin Blanc 2023

From dry-farmed bush vines on decomposed Darling granite, with juice extracted through a traditional basket press. Mouth-watering oxidative ripeness on the nose: golden apples, poached pears and toasted hazelnuts. The palate is tight, salty and mineral with a pithy grip. This is all about the purity and concentration of old vines. Fantastic stuff.

RRP: £29.99 ABV: 13% Museum Wines (01258 830122) museumwines.co.uk

Mauricio Lorca Recoleta Criolla Grande 2024

It seems that this was the summer when consumers finally latched on to the idea of chillable reds, and few are as fridge-friendly as this bouncy Mendoza mouthpleaser. Wafts of rose petals, loads of bright fruit and a zesty smack of acidity: coolness personified.

RRP: £14.10 ABV: 13% Ucopia World Wines (01435 517080) ucopiawines.co.uk

In a nutshell: Give customers a tasting to remember with a live opera performance. It helps if a member of the team just happens to be a trained opera singer.

Tell us more …

“Damian Carter works in the shop but he’s also a freelance opera singer. We do lots of different types of events and we thought, why not utilise his skills and incorporate them in something we do?

“We ask one of our suppliers to be involved and they lead the tasting. In this case we’re focusing on our higher-end wines, the Sancerres and Pouilly-Fumés from Hallgarten, and that’s a nice match. After the introduction of each wine, Damien will sing while people enjoy their glass, before moving on to the next wine.”

Are there lots of opera fans around?

“Combining the tasting with opera feels really special for the village, because we’re such a local shop, in a small place. It really works because people can just walk up the road and get an amazing experience, a proper evening out on your doorstep, without having to travel into London. And as everyone knows Damian through the shop, it’s all very relaxed – a real friendly village affair.”

How much do you charge?

“We’re quite careful with our pricing because, being in a small village, we’re

70: Live Opera

Lizzie O’Donohoe

The Wine Sisters, Redbourn, St Albans

Tickets cost £45 a head including fizz and food

aware that we’re often relying on the same people turning up to our events. We don’t want to price ourselves too high as that would make it difficult for repeat visits, even for our most avid supporters.

“We charge £45 a head, and that includes a glass of fizz on arrival, a big sharing cheeseboard, a guided tasting of six wines and some opera. Additional outlay is the local caterer for the cheeseboards and we employ Damian as a singer for the evening. He uses a backing track, so there are no additional musicians to pay.”

How important are events to your business?

“When my sister [Claire] and I started

the shop three and a half years ago, we wanted to create a social space where we would want to shop or hang out ourselves. We loved the idea of being able to buy a bottle of wine but also to grab a glass of something while you were there.

“It’s now very common for people to come in here on their own and bump into someone else from the village and they’ll say, ‘oh, stay for a glass of wine’.

“As well as the smaller individual tables, we have this big sharing table that seats 11 and there are some customers who will always sit at that table, because they are looking to meet people and chat to anyone who comes in. So it’s definitely become that community space – and these kind of events encourage that.”

Lizzie wins a WBC gift box containing some premium drinks and a box of chocolates.

Tell us about a bright idea that’s worked for you and you too could win a prize.

Email claire@winemerchantmag.com

Careful of the glasses with those high notes

DAVID PERRY

Irregular Thoughts

What can I do with my plum glut? The last thing I’ll be doing is making wine

We have a plethora of plums this year. The old stump in the middle of the garden has produced a few pounds but its illegitimate offspring have exceeded themselves. Apparently plum trees send out runners. They pop up in the lawn and get mowed. They pop up in the flower beds and get pulled up. When they pop up between the fence and the barbed wire that keeps the cows out, they grow into big trees. We now have 13. This year they are weighed to the ground with plums the size of hen’s eggs and I have had to buy four new buckets. I’ve been bringing about 20kg a day into

the shop and giving them away. The (very) local radio station got hold of it and put a jokey bit out about do-it-yourself wine. That is not something I approve of! They suggested customers could make their own plum wine, plum cider or Slivovitz. It is something I had considered briefly before remembering that I’m not exactly short of drinkable booze.

I Googled something like “101 things to do with plums” (102 if you eat them). One suggestion was plum wine. The author went to great lengths explaining the tediously long process, warning that it needs at least a year in bottle before it

is remotely palatable. He went on to warn that, unless you are scrupulous about hygiene, you get a bit of methanol. Not a huge issue unless you concentrate it by distilling. I’ll stick to jam (the jam sticks to me). So far this week I have made 32 jars. We gave away the last jar of last year’s yesterday. Mrs P has 11 grandchildren and they use it to maintain their hyperactivity. I would never stock fruit wine. It belongs in garden centres and farm shops, and that’s where I direct anyone who asks for it. Why is it that certain people, normally the ones wearing sandals and socks, can’t differentiate between real wine and fruit wine? When someone wants to talk wine and starts the conversation by telling me that they make a bit themselves, I ask them where their vineyard is. Unless they respond by saying they have 35ha of Chardonnay on the chalk uplands, you know you are in for half an hour of tedium. If they actually do have a vineyard we can chat for hours. As the proud owner of Shaftesbury Vines, probably Dorset’s highest, and certainly Dorset’s smallest, vineyard, I know the ups and downs. I like having the vines even though they can be hard work. Occasionally I’ll take a customer on a vineyard tour and explain how difficult viticulture can be. At the very least it justifies the prices we charge for real wine made by small growers. It’s not as straightforward as people think.

Last year was a disaster. It should have been the first crop but it failed right at the beginning. It was wet and the flowers simply didn’t set. We got about five miserable bunches of pea sized grapes. They all went on the compost heap. This year is very different. Like the plum trees, they are dripping with fruit. Each of my 35 main vines has between two and seven bunches. They look like proper grapes too.

Well, they did. I noticed recently that some have started to colour and shrivel a bit. As feared, powdery mildew was

As the proud owner of Dorset’s highest, and smallest, vineyard I know the ups and downs

Happier to give fruit away than risk methanol poisoning

diagnosed. Alice’s partner, Nick, looks after a few thousand vines so he came to the rescue. The other day he pulled up in his van and strapped on a huge backpack with a diesel motor attached. He swept through the vines (and vegetables) like a Ghostbuster. Someone asked what was going on and I nonchalantly explained that we had been haunted.

This morning I noticed that it hasn’t cured the issue entirely. I gave them a go with a little spray of bug killer from the bargain shop, which promised to do for powdery mildew as well. I’m not sure that has had the desired effect either and now I have no chance of organic certification. I don’t know why they have got powdery mildew as I’ve been meticulous in green pruning and the breeze blows through the bunches. It’s not like it’s been humid this summer, either. It’s been baking.

I blame the courgettes. The leaves go white and powdery. They can survive with few leaves, so the old ones were cut off and buried; probably too late. The bigger grapes taste quite sweet but tested at about 12 Brix. I need to keep them going for another month or two to get up to around 20 Brix to get to an alcohol level worth calling wine.

Everyone asks: will I make wine? To be honest, I don’t know. I notice that Bacchus is selling for £2,000 a tonne at the moment. Mine may be worth up to 35 quid! No commercial winery will take less than a tonne and I’m guessing they are not short this year. I could add my crop to Nick’s. He was persuaded to enter his first shed-made batch into the English Wine Competition and won a bronze medal – non-commercial category. Last year’s is accidentally fizzy, though. If I include my grapes the contribution will be homeopathic.

I may have a go at making a few bottles myself. I’ve recently inherited an old demijohn my late father used to make paint-stripper apple wine about 40 years ago. I may – but it does smack a bit of making plum wine, doesn’t it?

David Perry is the owner of Shaftesbury Wines in Dorset

? THE BURNING QUESTION

How important are customer reviews?

�We encourage customers to leave reviews for Just Champagne by including a link to Google Reviews on our website, emails and newsletters. For Ranmore Wines we are less proactive as it a smaller part of our company, but reviews are very welcome. They give us valuable feedback which we can use to change the business, they help with customer perception and trust on web searches, and they assist with SEO and boost staff morale.”

Mike Watkins * Champagne winner * Just Champagne/Ranmore Wines, Dorking

�We’ve traditionally relied on good oldfashioned word-of-mouth recommendations. But we’ve recently added a QR code to our counter with a small notice: ‘If you’ve visited us, we’d love to hear how your experience was, and we’d really appreciate it if you could take a moment to leave us a review’. This is a gamble, and a customer might leave a 1-star review simply because we’ve sold out of their favourite product. Every kind word and thoughtful review truly makes a difference.”

Kirby Morrow Cambridge Wine Royston, Herts

�We don’t encourage customers to leave reviews although we do speak to them to try to understand what they love, like or would like to see changed at Salut. We never respond to reviews on social media. Although we welcome the feedback, we feel that the time spent responding is time we could be spending looking after and speaking to our customers.”

Sara Saunby Salut Wines, Manchester

�We believe the best reviews come from happy customers telling their friends. Rather than asking for reviews, we focus on giving every customer a great experience they'll want to share. While TripAdvisor feedback is always appreciated, personal recommendations and the buzz we get through social media are what really bring people through our door.”

Caroline & Dean Elliot

The Cheese & Wine Shop, Darlington

Champagne Gosset

The oldest wine house in Champagne: Äy 1584

DUNCAN MCLEAN

Northabout

Blackening is a proud Orkney tradition, involving treacle and maybe orange wine

There’s a tradition, once prevalent across Scotland but now mostly seen in Orkney and Shetland: the pre-wedding blackening. These tend to take place over the summer months, when the majority of weddings are held, which means they coincide with tourist season. Cruise liner days are particularly fruitful from a culture clash point of view.

There were 3,000 cruise people in yesterday, mostly from Florida and other eastern US states. The liners don’t always bring a lot of business, as most of them don’t allow passengers to take alcohol on board, preferring them to buy the highly priced stuff served in their onboard shops and bars. We do sell lots of miniatures of whisky and gin that can be swigged strolling along the streets or smuggled on board in a handbag. This boat was different though; it allowed people to buy wine and only charged a corkage fee of $15. So we got quite a few sales.

We were holding an informal tasting of three wines notable for their wacky labels. We wanted to test whether bottles with crazy colourful labels could actually contain good wine. (Spoiler: the answer is yes. But you already knew that.) A typical conversation went like this:

North Carolina cruise lady: “I like that wine with the cartoon of the mad professor on the front.”

Me: “Isn’t it interesting?

It’s a Marselan from the Languedoc. An obscure grape, but well worth

seeking out. It’s a cross between Grenache and …”

Her: (Grabbing a bottle off the shelf.) “I like the label. It reminds me of Jerry Lewis.”

I paused my Marselan lecture: it was completely unnecessary. Likewise, I didn’t need to say much about the Viognier/ Riesling blend with the deep-sea-diving helmet on the front, or the Pinot Noir with the goat’s head on the label. The labels did the talking for me.

That’s when the banging and shouting started out in the street. The Americans rushed to see what was going on. I knew what was happening, even without looking: the sound of a blackening is unique and distinctive. There’s the rumble of a flat bed truck driving down the street between our shop and the cathedral, there’s the clanging of scaffolding bars, lengths of wood and tin pans being beaten rhythmically against the sides of the truck. And there’s the singing and chanting of the dozen men or women sitting in the back.

“Oh my god!” cried NC lady. “It’s a lynching!”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s just a blackening. The guy at the end of the lorry’s going to get married in a week or two, and the others are his best pals.”

“But he’s covered in blood!”

“What? No! That’s treacle.”

“What’s treacle?”

“They’re making him drink urine!” shrieked the North Carolina lady

“I think you call it molasses.”

This seemed to reassure her.

Unfortunately, at this stage phase two of the blackening commenced. The truck stopped outside the cathedral, and the whole crew leapt out, lager cans in hand, dragging the groom-to-be after them. Two of them pushed him against the stone market cross, and two others whapped multiple layers of catering clingfilm around him, fastening him unescapably to the old cross. Everyone else poured beer over him, and more treacle, then jumped back in the truck. Off it went round the block, the sound of banging fading into the distance, leaving only the hysterical laughter of the groom and the dropped jaws of the tourists.

“Are they just leaving him there?” said NC lady.

“Only for a while,” I said. “Ten minutes. Or maybe an hour. Then they’ll come back and cut him down. Then they’ll wash him in the public toilets and drag him to the pub.”

“Can we take photos?” she said.

“Of course,” I said. “It’s a grand old Orkney tradition. We’re proud of it, sort of.”

The groom’s best man returned. He was carrying an unlabelled wine bottle with a golden-yellow liquid in it. He unscrewed the top, then tipped the bottle up and started pouring it down his friend’s throat.

“They’re making him drink urine!” shrieked NC lady.

“No!” I shrieked in return. “We don’t do that here – what do you think we are?”

She pouted her lips in provisional apology. “So what is it then?” she said.

“Maybe a heavily oaked Chardonnay,” I said. “That would explain the colour. Is it too much to hope it might be an orange wine?”

She looked at me sceptically, and raised her phone to take a zoomed-in video of the groom coughing and spluttering as yellow liquid splashed into his mouth and down over his treacly chest.

“I still say it’s urine,” she said.

It seemed unlikely to me. But as the bottle didn’t have a label I couldn’t be entirely sure.

Duncan McLean is proprietor of Kirkness & Gorie, Kirkwall

Rising Stars

Nathan is the retail wine buyer for both Provisions branches, in Hackney and Highgate. Owner Hugo Meyer Esquerré says that although Nathan joined the company with no prior experience in the wine trade, that hasn’t stopped him achieving great things in a short space of time.

“Nathan started with us a couple of years ago, and showed an interest in wine, particularly organic wines,” says Hugo. “He quickly gained confidence and was promoted retail wine buyer for our two shops.

“His sparkling energy, his commitment to doing his job well and his unstoppable thirst for knowledge are a great source of inspiration for the rest of our retail team.”

Nathan discovered Provisions while he was walking around his new east London neighbourhood. “I’d been working for a law firm in the City,” he says. “I hated it, so I quit. I spotted Provisions and I thought it looked like a great place to work while I thought about what else to do. It was the perfect storm.

“I’ve always been a big fan of nice food. When I was 16 I worked in Waitrose on the deli counter, but everything I know about wine today is from learning on the job here. There’s a great support system and we have regular team training. It’s a nice open environment where I can find out something new about cheese from a colleague and then share a random fact about wine. The team shares information with each other and it’s just good to be so knowledgeable about the provenance of all the products. It’s really taught me respect for the work of all the producers, and our whole team.”

Provisions imports about 70% of its wine range and the rest Nathan sources from UK suppliers.

“Obviously we want to have as much of our stock on the shelves as possible,” he says, “but I do know our customer base inside out, so I consider the different customer tastes when I’m buying.

“It’s interesting comparing the customers between the two shops. At Highgate we have a lot of older customers and families, and I would say their tastes are more traditional, but in Hackney they are more willing to explore.

“I try and gently steer our more traditional drinkers to more unusual things that are not too out there, and a

Nathan Brown Provisions, London

lot of them are enjoying orange wines now, whereas last year they were turning their noses up at stuff like that.”

Wine buying aside, Nathan’s role is still almost entirely customer-facing and he’s very involved in planning events.

“It’s a big thing I’m trying to push,” he says. “I’m bringing in reps from different UK suppliers to do in-store tastings for everyone, including our trade customers. I think the whole point of Provisions is being as accessible to everyone as possible without being stuck up about wine, so these events are community building.”

Nathan wins a bottle of Champagne Devaux Cuvée D courtesy of Liberty Wines

If you’d like to nominate a Rising Star, email claire@winemerchantmag.com

Are we all faking it?

Robert Kukla Spedition UK

t: + 44 (0)1708 922 250 e: info.uk@kukla-spedition.com w: https://kbl.kukla-spedition.com

Exceptional Wine Storage Opportunity Greenham Common, Newbury, Berkshire

A rare chance to lease or partner in the development of one of the UK’s most secure and naturally climate-stable above-ground storage facilities.

Once home to NATO’s nuclear cruise missiles, this ultrasecure GAMA site offers exceptional ambient conditions – maintaining a steady 13°C year-round – ideal for the preservation of fine wine and other high-value assets.

Multiple insulated buildings ranging from 1,700 to 20,000 sq ft. Discreet location with excellent access to the M4 and M3.

To Let / Joint Venture Considered Discretion. Security. Stability.

Enquiries: shane@quintons.co.uk 07836 215126 07753 227550

mposter syndrome is a common worry that clients come to therapy with, and it seems to be on the rise. It is often seen in younger adults, perhaps those in their first job out of college/uni, but can crop up in any stage of life. It is part of being human to compare ourselves to others. Are we as intelligent/successful/attractive/rich as the person next to us? Are they thinking the same thing of us? Do we even deserve to be in our career? Have we read enough books/passed enough WSET exams/gone to all the right events? Why does it matter?

Here are a few things to remember on those days when you’re feeling like a humble village wine mistakenly placed in a tasting of grands crus:

• Focus on your individual strengths. What are you good at? What are your best personal qualities?

• Be open to taking feedback from others, both positive compliments and constructive criticism.

• Stop comparing yourself to others – especially when you assume they have a natural superiority.

• Share your fears and insecurities with a trusted friend –someone who will respect, support and challenge you.

• Think about who you really are. Own your origins in life (the good and the bad), your achievements and all the hurdles you have overcome.

• Finally, think about your personal values. Pursue what you truly care about, rather than just the things you feel you ought to.

We are all just humans; we don’t get everything right. Sometimes it’s OK to lower our standards. In therapy, as in life, we are all valuable individuals, and you cannot be an imposter of yourself.

Rachel is an integrative counsellor and a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. She formerly ran Wine Utopia in Winchester. To support clients in the wine trade, she offers ongoing online counselling sessions at the reduced rate of £35 per 50 minutes, so mention this article. Email rachel@ rachelgibsoncounselling.co.uk.

Favourite

Things

Mako Abashidze 80-20 Wines, London

Favourite wine on my list

Pirveli Winery Kisi, which is produced from an indigenous grape variety in Georgia and fermented in qvevri. This wine captures the essence of Georgian winemaking tradition with a rare and aromatic grape variety.

Favourite wine and food match

My chosen combination would be foie gras with Blackbird Wine Qvevri Rkatsiteli. The wine’s complex texture of fruit sweetness balanced with acidity cuts through the richness of the foie gras perfectly.

Favourite wine trip

Georgia, of course, and the Jura wine region in France. Both destinations offer unique, small-scale wine traditions deeply tied to their landscapes.

Favourite wine trade person

Sarah Abbott MW. Her expertise and passion for authentic wine storytelling make her a true leader in the trade.

Favourite wine shop

Sager + Wilde in London has an amazing collection. They curate an adventurous, world-spanning list with a strong focus on quality and individuality.

Phylloxera arrives in Tenerife vines

Phylloxera has been detected for the first time in the Canary Islands, with confirmed cases in two locations on Tenerife.

The Spanish archipelago had remained one of a handful of wine regions around the world thought to be free of the devastating pest.

The recent discovery puts the island’s centuries-old ungrafted vineyards, and the local viticultural heritage, at risk.

Decanter, August 11

Phylloxera first appeared in Europe in the 1860s

Vin de France label for Pomerol estate

A top Pomerol wine estate has quit a Bordeaux appellation system on the eve of harvest.

Château Lafleur has announced that, beginning with the 2025 vintage, it will no longer produce wines under the appellations of Pomerol and Bordeaux, instead designating all six of its labels as Vin de France.

The decision, communicated in a letter from the Guinaudeau family on August 24, was described as a necessary response to accelerating climate change and the increasing restrictions posed by the appellation system. Decanter, August 26

Lower alcohol is allowed in Tejo

Tejo has amended its regulations to allow much lower abvs.

Wines certified under PGI Tejo may now include wines with the new lower minimum alcohol content of 7.5% abv for “Leve” (light) wines, down from the previous 9%.

Additionally, the new rules mean that producers in the Portuguese region are now permitted to partially de-alcoholise wines and still have them certified as PGI Tejo as long as they have a minimum of 0.5% abv.

The Drinks Business, August 27

US winemakers on alert as fires rage

Fires raging in Oregon and California are threatening homes, vineyards and wineries, with Napa County declaring a state of emergency.

With harvest already underway, winemakers are watching nervously for signs of smoke taint and other damage.

In central Oregon, the wildfires have destroyed 10 structures, including four homes, and forced thousands of residents to evacuate. About 4,000 homes were under various evacuation notices, including 1,000 with immediate orders to leave.

In northern California, fires have scorched more than 6,800 acres of Napa County, which declared a state of emergency to unlock state and federal resources.

The Drinks Business, August 26

Triangle helps to shape Sussex wine

England’s wine scene is getting a fresh boost with the launch of the Rother Wine Triangle, the first Sussex Winelands trail that’s set to elevate the county as a destination for wine lovers. The pilot includes new wayfinding signage and orientation points that connect seven vineyards that fall between the points between Rye, Hastings and Flimwell, in the Rother Valley region of East Sussex. Participating vineyards include Carr Taylor Vineyard, Charles Palmer Vineyard, Mountfield Winery, Oastbrook, Oxney Organic Estate, Sedlescombe Organic Vineyard and Tillingham. Sussex Express, July 14 corkage

not many wine merchants can take time off for a summer break. but their customers sure as hell can

Stortford raises a glass, and a plaque

A blue plaque has been approved to commemorate a wine merchant recognised as being responsible for the democratisation of wine drinking.

Sir Walter Gilbey (1831-1914) from Bishop’s Stortford began importing wines from South Africa in the mid 19th century. He and his brother sold wine by the bottle to the general public at a time when vintners only supplied the aristocracy with cases of wine. They became the third largest importers of wine in Britain, and Charles Dickens was a customer. Bishop’s Stortford Independent, August 26

• Fox News Media is expanding into the wine business. The Fox News Wine Shop is a new ecommerce venture that will sell American-made wines sourced from independent producers. In addition to the online shop there is a subscription wine club and the USA 250 collection, an exclusive lineup of wines crafted to celebrate America’s 250th birthday in 2026. Forbes, August 26

QUIZ TIME

Answers to questions on page 8

1. (a) Estremadura

2. (c) Malbec

3. Hungary

4. A Tale of Two Cities (in Paris)

5. (a) 0km. The names are essentially interchangeable though producers such as Chapoutier and Ferraton use Ermitage to signify wines from lieux-dits

Tropical launch for Jam Shed Fruits

Jam Shed Fruits, the UK’s number two flavoured wine brand, has launched Jam Shed Tropical Crush.

It’s a 10% abv blended white wine, with guava, lychee and lime flavours and a smooth vanilla note, on the shelves in Tesco. The range, including Rhubarb & Strawberry Smash and Black Forest Mess, was launched in October 2023. Grocery Trader, August 27

NNNNNGHHH

Oxney Organic Estate

the byrne supremacy

Since being immortalised in Jancis Robinson’s Vintners’ Tales series on BBC2, D Byrne & Co has taken its place at the top table of the independent wine trade.

It almost became a legal requirement to refer to its Victorian premises as an “Aladdin’s cave”. But Covid restrictions saw this beloved space closed, with the sales operation switching to a less romantic warehouse.

Today, both sites are open, and thriving, as Nigel Huddleston discovers

The pandemic hit independents in different ways but it’s doubtful many experienced more major disruption to the status quo than D Byrne.

The Lancashire business had been operating out of the same shop in King Street in the centre of Clitheroe since 1879. The hilly site comprises a tiny room off the street with a 12-foot high ceiling and a cellar that burrows its way under the property next door – far from suitable for trading under social distancing rules.

The solution was to turn the nearby former Victoria Brewery that the company already used for storage into a retail space instead. What was intended as a temporary measure has now become a second permanent home for D Byrne, such was its success.

At around the same time, the family business transitioned to a new generation, brothers and Andrew and Philip taking back seats and handing the day-to-day reins to cousins Joe, Andrew’s son, and Kate, Philip’s daughter.

“I left school at 16,” says Joe. “My mother wanted me to go on to further education and, to be honest, when I left school there wasn’t a position available in the shop. But within a week someone left, so I left college and never looked back. I’ve had a part-time job here since I was 11 and a permanent one from 16 onwards.”

Joe looks after the warehouse – a mere fiveminute walk from the original store, which is Kate’s domain.

“It was different for me,” says Kate. “I went to university in Manchester and did a degree in illustration and design and brought that into the

“We don’t work on bar codes, there are no scanners, so it’s all done from memory. We buy a case of this and a case of that and see if it works”

business. I do any illustrations we need and a quarterly newsletter in full.”

She’s also poured her creative side into a food and wine paring wall that suggests matches for different types of meat or fish, or national cuisines.

“It’s quite fun and allows us a bit of creativity,” she adds. “The Ribble Valley is getting a bit of a reputation for food and we’ve got some really good eateries with Michelin stars, so it’s slightly tapping into that, but comes from someone who loves to cook.

“It’s a fun way to be able to display because you’re not confined to having to do it by country or grape variety. It means people are hopefully likely to pick up something they wouldn’t normally try.”

Byrne’s shift to becoming a wine merchant is relatively recent history, says Joe. “The shop was started by our great great grandfather, initially as a grocer that sold wine and spirits,” he explains. “In the late seventies we started increasing the range of wines and spirits.

“We still do things like loose tobacco and coffee, so we’ve kept our hands in a little bit as grocers but it’s predominantly wines and spirits.”

Kate adds: “We’re pretty old-fashioned in that we don’t work on bar codes, there are no scanners, so it’s all done from memory. Whether that’s the right way I don’t know but it does allow us a massive amount of flexibility.

“We can buy a case of this and a case of that and see if it works, and if it doesn’t, we can drop it, and then we don’t have the knock-on effect of having to remove it from the system.”

The contrast between the two sites couldn’t be more pronounced, with wines at the warehouse split between a vast loading bay-type area and another room that’s merely a little less big. The counter is in a smaller (but still not that small) room to the front, which is mostly home to spirits. A 19th century price list on display there includes “Prussian sherry” at 15 shillings a dozen.

Up at King Street, another display case features a flyer for Jancis Robinson’s Vintners’ Tales series for BBC2 from the 1990s, which helped elevate D Byrne’s reputation in the trade. The business was the focus of its own episode in a series that also featured the likes of Michael Broadbent, John Avery and Corney & Barrow.

“That was the thing that really pushed us

forward and really opened us up to a more nationwide customer base,” says Joe. “Touch wood, it’s continued ever since.”

The Q&A took place with Joe at the warehouse site.

How did the switch from King Street to the Victoria Brewery come about?

The cellars at the shop are fantastic but with the rules in place, and the ventilation, it would be have been one in, one out with a maximum of three people. So we made the decision quickly that if we were going to continue to trade it would have to be at the brewery, which we were already using as a warehouse for wholesale and to supply the shop.

Parking’s such a huge benefit. We always thought we might do something with it but, one, we never really found the time, and two, we never really had a clear idea of what to do. When our hand was forced, it really worked well.

It’s a huge space but doesn’t feel empty. Have you had to increase your stockholding to fill it?

Slightly. But really it’s just made us able to get more of what we had already on display. A lot of this was here but wasn’t visible because we didn’t have the shelf space for it at the shop. Here there’s practically endless space to fill. We keep adding on regions.

“King Street has lots of nooks and crannies and things were hidden away a bit. Here it’s all easily visible”

What made you decide to make it permanent and do both?

The warehouse had worked so well. King Street has lots of nooks and crannies and things were hidden away a bit. Here it’s all very easily visible. Initially we did a trial run of opening King Street back up, just with the front part of the shop, just to work out whether both sites would run alongside each other. Then it was like, it’s working, so at Easter of last year we reopened the cellars. They’re a little bit stripped back from how they were, a bit cleaner, a bit fresher. Kate’s done the big food and wine pairing wall which works really well – but the majority of sales are from the brewery.

What is the split between the two?

It’s probably about 10 times more here at the warehouse. Saturday’s a good gauge. We’ll do the same amount of customers through here on a Saturday as through King Street, but the King Street people buy one or two bottles, while at the warehouse they buy much bigger quantities. The brewery is a bit more off the beaten track which is how King Street works fantastically. It’s a great shop window for the warehouse. We can say, “we’ve got 2,000 products here [at the shop], but if you want a bigger selection it’s a five-minute walk or a two-minute drive away”, and we direct them to the warehouse.

And how big is the range there?

It’s about 7,000.

Most wine merchants feel big if they’re doing 700.

My dad and Philip are almost like alcohol hoarders. One of the joys of the newer site as buyers is that if you try something new and enjoy it you’re not restricted for a space to put it in. You’ve just got to sell it at some point.

Given the success here, have you ever considered closing King Street altogether?

No, partly from nostalgia and not wanting to lose the original building, but also we just didn’t want to lose that high street presence and leave the potential for someone to come into the town centre. It certainly holds its own. We get a lot of regulars who prefer that nostalgic thing of being able to go into the shop. It captures a lot of passing trade. We always fully intended to get the shop back

Kate Byrne’s degree in illustration and design has been a boon to the business

up. It took longer than we anticipated, mainly because the warehouse worked so well. We were struggling to find the time. It had empty shelves for a while and the actual physical refilling of it took about three weeks. The ceiling’s about 12-foot high stacked with wines, initially, and then spirits at the top. We’ve tried to give it a different identity to the warehouse, to give a different pull to people.

Is overall business ahead of pre-pandemic because of having two sites?

Yes. It ebbs and flows. The volatile area has been wholesale. Retail, generally, is good. Wholesale is fluctuating on a weekly basis, but overall averaging out. We keep picking up new smaller wholesale accounts that do really well. It’s mainly independent pubs and restaurants as far as 30 miles away. But we don’t actively go chasing new accounts. We’re happy if they come to us and it means we’re doing them on our terms when they do. In the past couple of years, we’ve picked up a lot of new little bespoke wine bars who are realising

“It was instilled into us that you make your profit from your volume of sales, not from mark-ups”

that we can be competitive price-wise, and the range they can get from us is much bigger. It works nicely with private clients: because we’re going to these areas, we can tie in free delivery to them at the same time.

Does ecommerce have a role there?

We’ve just had a new website go live at the back end of last year but we’re still not selling directly from it. Trying to maintain this stockholding on a website with still a fairly small-ish team is a very difficult job. We’ve always said if it’s working then there’s no need to fix it, and risk losing that quality control over what we’re doing already. Our biggest ethos has always been our pricing. We sell stuff to people at the most reasonable price possible. My dad and Philip always instilled into us that you make your profit from your volume of sales, not from markups. It still seems to work. It’s getting the message out there to people that we are reasonably priced. We do both extremities but it’s the bread-andbutter stuff that sells in big quantities.

D Byrne carries about 7,000 lines

Who are you up against locally?

There’s a lot for a fairly small town. Lidl is across the road. There’s an Aldi, Booths, a Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Majestic, so you’ve got to be competitive.

What brings people here rather than Majestic, or Booths, which has quite nice BWS sections? Range and pricing. We just need to shout about it a bit more that we are competitive with anyone on price – and 7,000 lines is hard to match.

We’re very fortunate, especially with a lot of older Burgundy that my dad and Philip have built up over the years. We’re fortunate to have those sorts of things in stock. People will travel from far and wide to visit us.

And you’ve got a national reputation. That’s been built up over many years. We deliver ourselves within 30 miles and we use a courier to send wine around the country. We’ve got Londonbased customers who realise it’s a lot more reasonable to pay our prices and the shipping costs than it is to buy locally to them.

The warehouse covers a vast space. Is there a method to its layout?

The larger space is more entry level. It’s stuff that moves in a quicker timescale. Pretty much everything is between £7 and £15, maximum. The section in the middle at the back has been opened up to lower-end south American and then Italian – and lesser ranges like Uruguay, Brazil, Mexico –and the shelving is more like Lebanon and Greece, which have got quite big.

The other room replicates the same countries and regions but is more premium, from £15 up to the hundreds. There is some stuff that we don’t put on display. We’re trying to work out some sort of cabinet-esque system where we could put first growth and top-end Burgundy, so people could see them without picking them up.

What earns a wine a place in the 7,000?

If you enjoy it and you can sell it – and if it’s punching above its weight for the money, more than anything. It’s got to be over-delivering for the price.

But are there no boundaries apart from that? We recently tried a fantastic range of southern Italian stuff. We’re very well stocked in that area already – but they are there in the background.

They’ll be incorporated at some point, but let’s clear through some of the stock of others before we do. The problem is, a lot of the time, there’s very little that doesn’t sell well. That makes it quite hard to remove lines just to incorporate new ones, so we do just keep building on the range more often than not.

The new generation of modern wine merchants often incorporates a hybrid element. With all this space, has there been any consideration to doing a sort of wine version of a brewery tap? It’s been talked about, but I think more than anything our home life is quite precious. Doing that starts eating into your evenings. I’ve got two young children. I’d never rule it out, but we’re still building to get it to exactly where we want to be.

“Hybrid has been talked about but our home life is quite precious. Doing that starts eating into your evenings”

In the past year, we’ve started to do a lot more evening events but whether we want to do that on a full-time basis I don’t know. Once a month would be ideal.

For a weekday morning, there seems to be a steady flow of customers here in the warehouse. We open at 8.30am [9am at the shop] and we have that steady flow from early in the morning. A lot of

The largest space of the warehouse is for entry-level wines

people know they can come and do their shopping early and then do what they want with the day.

Does the nature of the business mean you have an older customer base rather than the TikTok generation?

Social media has become a bit more influential. The shop in town attracts a younger crowd. We did a natural and organic section there, as there was a bar down the road focused on natural wines. People could try them down there and then come up and purchase them from us. That’s carried on and worked well.

7,000 lines means you must have a big supplier base. Any favourite ones?

Boutinot has always been our main one, especially for that sub-£10 retail level. They’re very difficult to beat. We do an awful lot with Hallgarten and Liberty. We like to champion people like Thorman Hunt. They’ve got such an exceptional portfolio, coming back to that idea of punching above the weight for the price. There are more than 50 suppliers, especially when you factor in spirits, where we often go directly to producers to get the best prices.

Just on that one shelf [points at South Africa], you’ve got ABS, Fells, Seckford, Boutinot, Liberty. We’re always finding new ones. We found one recently called C&O Wines that does a cracking range of Moldovan stuff. They’re great for the money, sub-£10 retail, but more than anything the quality of the wines is fantastic.

There’s still quite a bit that we ship direct, but not as much as we used to.

Do you and the team tend to specialise in buying in your particular areas or with particular suppliers?

We all do a bit of everything. Up until recently Philip’s dealt mainly with Boutinot but as we go forward Kate and I have got involved with that. I mainly deal with Hallgarten and Liberty but if you take it all on your own it’s practically impossible to do, so we do get the team involved.

More often than not, if suppliers are coming in with sample stock from producers, we get as many staff as possible to try the wines and discuss them afterwards.

It’s the same with trade tastings. We try to get as many people as possible to go to them, to involve

“If suppliers are coming in with sample stock we get as many staff as possible to try the wines and discuss them afterwards”

people as much as we can. It keeps them happy and gives them a chance to try a wide range of wines. Everyone’s a bit of a dab hand at everything.

Would you say you’re specialists in anywhere in particular?

We try to specialise in everywhere. Burgundy was a massive passion of my grandfather, which was passed on to Philip mainly. He still does a lot of the Burgundy buying and that’s still where we buy a lot direct from. Spain was a massive passion of my father’s, so we’ve always carried a huge range of Spanish wines. South Africa was my first project when I was 16, when it was on the rise, so that’s a big passion of mine. But we try to specialise in practically everywhere.

Where do you ship from yourselves?

The main one is a house Champagne which we have exclusivity on in the UK. We still ship Burgundy and claret quite regularly but outside of that it’s become few and far between. That’s to do with costs more than anything. It used to be that you could buy 20 or 30 cases and it was worth doing, but now, unless you’re buying pallets of stuff, it’s too expensive. We can ship three pallets of Champagne and it makes it a very affordable bottle.

We had a cracking Rioja producer that we used to import but it was putting anything from £5-£10 a bottle on because it was smaller volumes.

So what comes next for D Byrne?

It took my dad and Philip 50 years to get the cellar [at the shop] how they wanted, so to do the warehouse in five has been quite a quick turnaround. We just want to keep building on it and expanding … making it bigger and better, really.

Parking is one of the bonuses at the brewery site

1. Good first impressions

“Retail designers are trained to create sensory journeys that align with consumer behaviour,” says Cyrus. “We’re hardwired to respond to things like order, symmetry and colour – even things like music and temperature have an effect on a customer and how they respond to your shop. In the food and drinks arena, shopping is driven by presentation – freshness and cleanliness – as well as the perceived quality or value.”

You can positively affect people’s subconscious reaction to your shop the moment they walk through the door by allowing them a beat or two.

“The entrance to your shop is known as the ‘decompression zone’, explains Cyrus. “It’s the space where your customers can get out of the cold or the heat, take a breath and get used to being in this new environment before they move further inside. Avoid any kind of visual merchandising in that first immediate area.”

Creating an effective retail space Combine your aesthetic instincts with encourage footfall and

Emma Cyrus from retail display and Adrienne Miller, head of visual merchandising insights with Claire

2. Logical layout

“You want customers to meander through your store rather than simply having a direct line from the entrance to the back of the shop where they pay and go straight back out again,” says Miller.

“It’s important to have a layout that allows a journey with various points of interest that will encourage the customer to stop.

“I would describe this as a racetrack or loop layout rather than a grid format, which you might see in a supermarket. With a racetrack layout, the journey is staggered with a definite pathway through the store. This is exactly what Ikea does, but you can easily do that in a smaller environment.”

Cyrus adds: “Most people instinctively turn right when they enter a shop, so you could ensure your first point of interest is to the right. The first row or wall the customer encounters is known as the ‘power wall’ and that is where you can put the items you really want them to see: new products, seasonal or sale items.”

Taking the racetrack metaphor a little too far

The entrance to the shop should be a decompression zone

space is equal parts art and science. with some basic retail psychology to and maximise sales.

and packaging specialist WBC and merchandising for Morphe, share their Claire Harries

3. Draw the customer in

“When I worked for The Body Shop,” says Miller, “we had huge shops but also some pretty tiny ones. Regardless of the size, the rule was to have something of interest to draw the customer in and usually the easy way of doing that is whatever is in the window should be duplicated on that first table or fixture. The shopper is at ease straight away because they can see what’s drawn them in.

“Lulu Lemon does this particularly well. They might have their latest shades at the front of the store to echo the window display, but at the back, to entice you further in, they’ll have the full assortment.

“There’s a wine shop in Dublin that draws me in every time. His windows are always engaging and when you get into the store, the bar, which is a high-level table, is positioned at an angle so it welcomes you further inside rather than acting as a barrier. Wines of the week are at the front and he’s always got a glass next to them, which encourages further interaction: you think, ‘is there a tasting going on here?’”

4. Sensible sampling and signage

“In the cosmetics industry, sampling is very important and having the ability to selfselect is also key,” says Miller. “What I mean by that is not necessarily having to wait for somebody to come over to try something on or to test it on your hand, but having the ability to play. That is probably more challenging with wine, but whatever facilities you have, make sure it’s set up in a really hygienic way.”

It’s a balancing act but experienced staff will know how much to engage and when, to allow shoppers the freedom to explore but also give them the information they need.

“You obviously want good shop assistants who are there to help,” says Cyrus, “but people don’t want to have to go and look for help every time they need something. So really good signage, like bottleneck signage, or hanging shelf signage, is vital to a good retail space.”

Again, it’s about moderation, as Miller points out: “Graphics and communication vehicles are really, really important, but there’s a fine line there as well. Don’t overwhelm the customer with so much education or so much information that they can’t see the wood for the trees. Optical pollution is a visual merchandising term. Basically, if you walk into a store and all you see is signage, you’re not going to read any of it. Choose wisely when it comes to graphics and use them in a consistent way.”

Powerless to resist the pulling power

Don’t overwhelm your customers with optical pollution

5. Constant evaluation and change

“A countertop or a shelf promotion that has been there for too long will look stale and customers will ignore it,” says Cyrus. “Avoid display fatigue by regularly changing things up. You can do small things like maybe change the colour palettes on your countertops or the back panels of your shelving or create a new pop-up zone somewhere. It seems natural to do this seasonally.

“I think your staff play a major role in helping you figure out how customers are responding to shop displays. If you can get your team to keep an eye on whether people are browsing a particular countertop display, or if they’re just ignoring it and walking away, it will help you decide what to change. It’s just taking the time to see how people are responding to what you’re putting out there.”

Versatile display fixtures that can be moved around in-situ to create different zones or spaces are extremely useful. Consider the BRIX range from WBC, for example, but also something as simple as a collection of tables of different heights can be a valuable addition to your shop. as Miller suggests.

“I’m thinking of a group of tables and one of those tables is a large, rectangular one at bar height, then you might have two or three different square ones that slot in and underneath,” she says. “You could have them arranged together during the day, maybe to display a particular wine promotion, and then if you want to change the fixtures in your store from day to evening for a tasting event, you might want to separate out those tables to create little individual areas throughout the store.”

6. Magical merchandising

“According to statistics, visual merchandising influences sales by up to about 30% and about 73% of customers will return to a well-designed shop,” says Cyrus.

“The saying ‘eye-level is buy-level’ is true, but you still have to think about how to successfully group products together to create a beautiful display. It’s tempting to include as much as you can on a countertop display, but work in groups of three to five different products otherwise it will be too overwhelming for the customer to look at. They won’t absorb anything if it’s too much effort to really explore it.

“Don’t forget that the till point is a really good place for impulse sales, so think of this area for strategic positioning of promotional items.”

7. Brilliant branding

“Marketing and visual merchandising are intrinsically linked,” says Miller. “You can’t do one thing without the other. In wine retail in particular, building a community of your customers is key. Your USP of tastings and events come into play, but think about how you continue your branding across those, from the social media posts to printed material, to personalisation. How are your products wrapped? Can you add a personalised message for gifting? Those seemingly small touches help you build loyalty with your customers.”

Cyrus adds: “Make sure your branding aligns with the interior aesthetic and ethos of your shop. Choose colours and retail furniture to resonate your brand and don’t forget music to match. It’s interesting that people respond very well to classical music in wine shops: there is research to suggest that it increases sales.”

Try to keep your displays fresh

Eye-level is buy-level, but you can think more creatively

Personalised messages can mean a lot

CAT BRANDWOOD

The

Long Run

A welcome holiday – and then the black hole of wine retailing sucks me back in

So, what’s it like to escape the clutches of the wine trade? If you spotted my gurning face in last month’s issue, you’ll realise that at best I managed a holiday before the black hole of wine retailing sucked me back in.

As it turns out, the five-years-in-theplanning (thanks Covid) holiday I had planned for June was just what was needed. We spent a week on a boat travelling to New York. Having nothing to do except watch the changing shades of blue (and sometimes grey) on the water was quite restorative, really, and much needed after the chaos that had preceded it.

I returned however to a Winchester that no longer felt like mine. I was no longer a member of the business community and given how involved I had been (or perhaps more accurately, how much we all loved a good gossip) it felt like I’d lost a part of myself.

I’m suddenly not chatting to people who work on the same street as I did, who I had regarded as my colleagues – or, more correctly, my peers (certainly I’d spoken to most of them daily for 13 years). Because what is there to talk about when I can’t share in the mutual happiness of a good Christmas or the commiserations of the tourists filling the city yet spending no money? All those probing questions and honest answers that used to be a part of day-to-day conversation are now gone, slowly retreating into the standard responses that I used to give to customers. Though I have these moments of mourning what is gone, it is rather nice not

to have to think about a business anymore. As many of you know, it really is bloody difficult and all-consuming. Some of you did share your own struggles with me –thanks, it was nice to exchange stories and hear your thoughts.

Leaving behind all of this, it is of course time to look forward. I now find myself in gainful employment at The Naked Grape, basing myself out of their Alresford shop, which was an unexpected but lovely outcome.

While sullying my own fine reputation (“hostile and unreliable” as one of my friends so lovingly puts it) was perfectly fine, I don’t think that I should set this new working relationship on fire quite yet. I am trying to prove to myself (and perhaps some of you) that I am not unemployable after working for myself for so long. Some might argue that I was unemployable well before I started my own business. For instance, in a previous life working for a large chain that no longer exists, I was the reason all the sales managers were barred from the weekly sales meetings.

Anyway, my job now involves very little interaction with the general public and plenty of contact with some of my favourite, genuine customers. So, I will (probably) not be regaling you with too many inappropriate stories from this particular workplace. You will however be relieved to know that I still have plenty of stories to tell from my own time on the front line of retail.

I am of course still running – training hard for the Marathon du Médoc currently. By the time you read this, I will (hopefully) have completed the race, as will Mr B, who has done amazingly well at his training – he’s going to smash it. I have to be nice to him just this once. I called him a shit pedestrian during a run a few weeks back and (not unreasonably) that didn’t go down well.

So, have no fear. Something resembling my normal sweary service will resume.

Suddenly I’m not chatting to people who work on the same street as I did and I regarded as peers

Cat Brandwood is the former owner of Toscanaccio and now head of private client sales at The Naked Grape

Cosmic scenes in Alresford

Latitude Wine, Leeds

Max Whisker

“I think these themed months bring a nice amount of colour and celebration to an independent shop,” says Max. “These events highlight why specialist retailers such as us are a more enjoyable shopping experience than purchasing from supermarkets or larger wine shops. They offer a great opportunity to get customers to think outside of the realms of what they’d usually purchase.”

Bon Coeur Fine Wines, Melsonby Matthew Allen

Matthew set up a tasting station in store to showcase five Portuguese wines. Customers were also offered discounts online and in store.

He reports that the campaign helped to promote lesser-known wine regions, with the Douro proving particularly popular with his customers. “We have definitely attracted the attention of people who would not necessarily have tried Portuguese wines before,” he says.

Butlers, Brighton

Cassie Butler Gould

Cassie says she chose to focus the promotion on red and white blends from Alentejo, which were listed by some of her trade customers as a result of her Instagram posts.

She notes that social media activity with influencer Luke Flunder “was a great success”, with the video gaining 15,300 views. “The video he made was fun, personal and highlighted the wine really well. He has been the best influencer we’ve been paired with for any campaign to date,” she says.

Now into its fifth year, June is for Indies is a celebration of Portuguese wines across the UK. Recognising that independent wine merchants provide the most engaging and vibrant experiences for consumers, Wines of Portugal offered promotional and digital materials to help participating indies to boost sales.

Some of the indies who chose to share their love of Portugal with their customers – through tastings, events, food and education – tell about the benefits of being part of the campaign.

Cellar Door Wines, St Albans

Penny Edwards

Cellar Door Wines celebrated June is for Indies with a “big summer tasting” event including Portuguese wines. The most successful activity reported by Penny was the Instagram reel featuring details of a sixcase giveaway. That alone got almost 6,000 views and gained 95 new followers.

Wine Down, Isle of Man

Anne Harrison

Digital screens in the shop and the restaurant played a part in Anne’s promotional activities. “Our tutored tasting [allowing guests to try different wines] was one of the best attended events of its kind that we have held, resulting in excellent sales of wines tasted on the evening,” she says. “The response of our customers shows that there is a real appetite to not only taste the wines but to learn about their production.”

Vinotopia, Nailsworth

Koletka Pukacz

A major supplier supported Vinotopia’s campaign with a Portuguese wine dinner and there was also a pop-up tasting. Koletka reports that Vinotopia’s promotional activities created a “good increase in sales in-store and online”, with their customers really embracing the “fresh, citrus styles of the white wines on offer”.

The Wright Wine Company, Skipton Les Hall

Les selected eight wines to focus on, which were available to taste every day throughout his two-week promotion. The tastings were free, and on the final day included a selection of “Iberian nibbles”. Customers were also offered a discount of 15% on all purchases.

“Over the course of the promotion we sold at least 90 bottles from the range,” says Les. “It’s fair to say that the value of the promotion, in terms of volume and value, far exceeds the norm.”

No

2 Pound Street, Wendover Michael Boniface

Michael’s June promotion yielded a 2,537% uplift in Portuguese sales on the previous month. “The wines went down well by the glass with customers willing to trade up to more expensive wine,” he says. “I think we won over customers to Portuguese whites who wouldn’t normally buy them.

“Customers like Portuguese wine but cannot be specific to regions or grapes so more education is needed. The more tasting we can do with them, the better.”

Givino, Frome

Jamie Lymer

Givino’s promotion ran for the entire month and, among various activities, included two tasting evenings with Portuguese food. Jamie reports “a very good uplift in sales, with a mix of new customers as well as existing customers buying wines they had not before.” The team’s hard work is having a lasting effect as Jamie reports that more customers are now coming in and going straight to the Portuguese section

James Hands from Raymond Reynolds with Henry Butler

The Cellar Door team

The Wright Wine Company

Sally David at Vinotopia

Jamie Lymer at Givino

Wine Down

ROB HOULT

Another Thing

Back in one thousand four hundred and forty minutes: the Hoults are on holiday!

I’m just back from my summer break and, like when I was a nipper and school holidays were nearly over, I am now under the cosh to get my homework done. I know this because the lovely Mr Holter has sent me an email pointing out that a deadline is an actual thing.

In fairness I did ask him to do this because I procrastinate so much that I’d otherwise manage to put it off until next summer. In an effort to come up with an idea I thought I would channel some of that school homework energy and write about Wot I Done This Summer

Well, probably the most remarkable thing I did this summer was actually go on holiday. Whilst we may shift a rather sensible amount of wine, there are very few of us doing it. There is myself and then there is the brains of the outfit, my wife Bridget, then we have our impressively indestructible delivery driver, Chadders, and, er, that’s it … just the three of us. So if Bridget and I actually want to go away together then really we need to shut up shop, which we do, but it’s a relatively modern thing for me.

When Bridget first put forward this idea, four years ago, I came out in hives. I grew up in a corner shop: you never shut, ever. Even when family members snuffed it we stayed open. It is possible to do a funeral in shifts.

If there is one thing I have learned from spending the last few years working with my wife it is that she is invariably correct. It may take me a day or two to agree with some ideas but agree I do, and with closing the shop she was correct in a way which just makes so much sense.

You see, in the old days there was me and two members of staff. When I left to go on holiday, the business was still there doing what the business did, and so I was never truly separated from it. I’d still get phone calls and requests to respond to

Every restaurant we went to seemed to have the same menu, borrowed from a Berni Inn circa 1978

Spaghetti like your mum used to make, but not in a good way

emails and, despite the writing of copious lists, there would be questions to which the answer was already on the bloody list. So by pausing the business entirely for one week we can completely and utterly forget about work, and it is bliss. I would urge anyone in the same position to do it; it seems odd but it works. Your customers don’t run off and leave you, they are your customers because you’re good, not because you’re open 24/7.

Closing for seven days does mean that the week before we go away is hectic, as wholesale customers double order and retail customers weirdly act as if it’s lockdown 2.0. This reaction is unintentional on our part but it does mean that the shut week doesn’t overly affect the figures for August. It does help massively that we have lovely, understanding, loyal customers who see us as actual people and know that we’ll come back from our break renewed and re-energised. So where did we spend this ever so precious week? Well we went to that wine hotspot of, er, Belgium. We wanted somewhere that was a short journey from Calais to minimise driving time; we wanted to visit Bruges, and Bridget’s granny was Belgian, so it seemed a sensible choice. Normally we go to France – we love France and we both seemed to remember from school that Belgium was quite French in its ways. We really should have paid more attention in class.

we went to had what seemed to be the same menu and it was a menu that was borrowed from a Berni Inn circa 1978. Vol au vent, half a chicken and chips, scampi and chips, croquette and chips and spaghetti, lots and lots of spaghetti. If I had to say what the Belgian national dish is it would be spaghetti, but not in that lovely Italian way. It’s spaghetti done as my mum would have in 1982: limp. Travel broadens the mind but I also want it to broaden my palate.

If you’re eating, though, you are very likely drinking, and it’s something of an understatement to say that Belgium does beer well and the choice is unsurprisingly excellent. A restaurant may have a page or three of fabulous beers but generally only half a dozen wine options.

The wine thing is a little odd because Belgium, like Britain, doesn’t really do wine production so there is a much broader variety of styles and countries available on the wine shelves in supermarkets and shops than you would find in neighbouring France. So I was a little surprised that it didn’t translate on to many restaurant wine lists.

One part of Belgium may be French but that wasn’t the part we were in. Flanders is all really rather Dutch. We learned a few things about our little part of Belgium. Belgians are very friendly. They love bikes every bit as much as the Dutch but pedestrians seem a little lower down the pecking order, and woe betide you forget yourself and walk in the red bit of the pavement.

They have no real cultural identity, and this extends to food. Every restaurant

When we did find any wine bars or restaurants with a larger list of wines they were invariably top to toe natural wines or orange wines (maybe that’s the Dutch connection again, boom-boom). I have opinions on natural and orange wines, but I also have a deadline to meet and a word count to keep below, so maybe it’s wise if I stop typing and stir that hornet’s nest another time.

PS: I was going to do a nice drawing down the margins of the page and colour it in with my brand new pencil crayons but then I remembered I’m not nine years old anymore.

I’ve been persuaded by a friend that I must come from a long line of nightwatchmen. He told me that for those of us who discover an often-unwelcomed spike in creativity and alertness at night, we are tapping into the responsibility of our ancestors. I’ve refrained from researching it in the fear that the whole thing will prove to be absolute nonsense, so I’m just going to adopt it as gospel instead. A nightwatchman sounds a lot more appealing than someone who staggers blindly through all conventional working hours only to find himself shoehorning an ever-growing workload into a frantic nocturnal window.

And it is in these later hours that my most far-fetched wine merchant scenarios take hold, the most recent being what major historical figures would buy if they visited the shop.

This week it was Napoleon. I assumed that the newly-resurrected pocket emperor would be in a reminiscent mood, looking to recall his early successes in Italy. It’s said that he had a remarkable sense of smell, which will have only grown more sophisticated in his 200 years away from the aroma of the battlefield. A man with these sensory attributes must appreciate Nebbiolo.

Thinking practically, Bonaparte was quite a short man, so despite having what I would expect to be sufficiently deep pockets, he simply wouldn’t have the vertical assets to reach the top shelf stuff. So I concluded that a Langhe red would tick every box. I decided that in this scenario, rather than trying to explain the contactless card system, I’d just take his gold.

Rob Hoult owns Hoults Wine Merchants in Huddersfield

The estate is just 45km from the Spanish border

Why is a Douro valley quinta named after an Italian volcano? The reason dates back to the 1820s, soon after António Bernardo Ferreira bought Quinta das Figueiras. A keen traveller, Ferreira loved Mount Vesuvius and decided it would be a better name for his estate, located 120km east of Porto and just 45km from the Spanish border in the remote Douro Superior.

In 1827 he built his winery, complete with eight granite lagares. Later generations took the decision to bottle their own ports on site – quite a momentous step by the standards of the 1860s – and so Quinta do Vesúvio started to carve out a reputation of one of the Douro valley’s most progressive and important properties.

The Symington family acquired the quinta in 1989, and since then Vesúvio’s special terroir has become the cornerstone of its outstanding ports and Douro DOC wines.

Not surprisingly for the Douro valley, the climate is dry, with extremes of heat and cold. There are seven prominent hills on the estate, with a primary soil type of schist and granite. The elevation ranges from 130 metres to 530 metres, with just 133ha of the 326ha under vine, illustrating the commitment to biodiversity.

There has been a station on the mainline Douro railway at Quinta do Vesúvio since 1887 and the trains that call there are part of the property’s day-to-day life. This railway forms part of Vesúvio’s rich heritage and when the Symington family decided to launch a third dry red wine from the legendary estate, it felt only natural to evoke the propitious coexistence between railway and vineyard. The Comboio do Vesúvio (Vesúvio Train) is unoaked to underscore the wine’s youthful, fruit-forward profile

Comboio do Vesúvio White

Douro DOC, RRP £22

A blend of indigenous Douro white grape varieties such as Viosinho, Códega do Larinho and Rabigato, sourced from two high-quality white wine vineyards owned by the Symington family: Quinta da Fonte Branca and Quinta das Netas.

An extended period of ageing on fine lees helps build roundness and volume, and ageing in stainless steel preserves the wine’s primary aromatic expression, resulting in an elegant and fresh profile with gastronomic potential.

Comboio do Vesúvio Red

Douro DOC, RRP £22

A blend of 45% Touriga Nacional, 35% Touriga Franca, 10% Tinta Roriz and 10% Tinta Barroca, expressing pure red fruit aromas and notes of roses, thyme and delicate pine resin from estate-grown fruit. The absence of wood ageing, with strict control over movements and air contact to preserve the primary aromatic components as much as possible, creates a youthful and fresh profile suitable for immediate consumption.

Pombal do Vesúvio

Douro DOC, RRP £28

One of the main components of Pombal do Vesúvio comes from the terraced vineyards surrounding the old dovecote, primarily planted with Touriga Nacional in 2000. The Touriga Franca from the vineyards of Vale da Teja and Minas is the other significant contributor to Pombal, along with a smaller contribution of Tinta Amarela from the Quinta Nova vineyard.

The wine has a wide aromatic range – figs, fennel, lavender – and is vigorous and full bodied, but also graceful, with tension and grip.

Heroes of the Douro

The Fells portfolio includes two of the most prestigious wine producers in the famous valley: Quinta do Vesúvio and Graham's Port.

Find out more at fells.co.uk

Feature produced in association with Fells

Quinta do Vesúvio

Quinta do Vesúvio

Douro DOC, RRP £67

Made from a blend of predominantly Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca, with a sprinkling of Tinta Amarela. These varieties are cultivated in the Quinta Nova vineyard, located at an altitude of 450 metres and facing west. The wine ages in French oak barrels for 12 to 15 months. Distinctive freshness on the nose and an appealing floral aroma, and a rich texture with black fruit and dark chocolate notes. The long and complex finish reveals tea and tobacco leaf.

Graham’s Six Grapes Reserve

Ruby RRP £18

Graham’s signature reserve port, marked by its great history, complexity, structure and balance.

Traditionally marked on barrels of port by Graham’s winemakers after each harvest, the Six Grapes symbol has long stood for quality, distinction, and vintage potential. It is from these wines that Graham’s has made its signature reserve port since the early 1900s.

Dark red, with a seductive rich perfume of ripe plums and cherries. On the palate, complex, with a good structure and a lingering finish.

Graham’s “The Tawny” RRP £23

The signature blend. A lovely tawny port with vibrant fruit flavours combined with the complexity from wood ageing. Aged for seven to nine years in seasoned oak barrels, The Tawny embodies the essence of the Douro Valley's beautiful mountain vineyards.

Complex aromas of orange peel, cinnamon and dried fruit. On the palate, it is full-bodied and generous with a lasting finish.

Graham’s 10 Years Old RRP £25

A delightful and vibrant tawny port with complex nutty notes. Aged for an average of 10 years in seasoned oak casks, this wine represents a wonderful expression of tawny port – the perfect pairing for sweet pastries such as apple pie with cinnamon. On the nose, it shows complex nutty aromas combined with hints of honey and figs. On the palate, rich mature fruit flavours, beautifully mellowed with a luscious long finish.

FGraham’s Port

ounded in 1820 by brothers William and John Graham, Graham’s Port quickly became known as a producer of exceptional ports. This success culminated in the building of the Graham’s 1890 Lodge in Gaia and the acquisition of Quinta dos Malvedos.

In 1882, Andrew James Symington sailed from Scotland to Porto to work for the Graham family, thus beginning the long association between the families. In 1970, Andrew’s grandsons acquired the company from the Graham family, and have continued to grow its reputation for producing incredible ports.

Graham’s sources its grapes from four properties: Quinta dos Malvedos, Quinta do Tua, Quinta da Vila Velha and Quinta do Vale de Malhadas. Each brings its own unique characteristics to the wines.

Each year, the finest Graham’s ports are made in the specialist winery at Quinta dos Malvedos. Here, winemakers are tasked with producing the finest expression of that year’s fruit – an approach that has lasted for over 200 years.

Graham’s is one of the few remaining port houses to employ its own team of coopers. Their expertise in the ancient art of cooperage is fundamental to port winemaking, and especially for wines that spend decades ageing in the lodge.

Graham’s 20 Years Old RRP £50

A wonderful aged tawny, exquisitely mellowed by careful ageing for 20 years in seasoned oak casks. It pairs extremely well with nuts, dried fruits and fruitcake, but also with vanilla ice cream or crème brûlée. On the nose, it has an excellent bouquet with a characteristic nutty character and delicious mature fruit with hints of orange peel. On the palate, it is rich, softly sweet and smooth, perfectly balanced, with a long, elegant finish.

Graham’s 30 Years Old RRP £100

Aged for an average of 30 years in seasoned oak casks, the 30 Year Old Tawny is a testament to prolonged wood ageing in cask and the skills of the coopers who tend to them. Truly a product of passion, dedication and craftsmanship.

Magnificent nose showing an array of dried fruits. On the palate, it is concentrated with full honeyed fruit. Gorgeously mellow, with an amazing, long finish.

Graham’s has its own cooperage, emphasising the vital role of quality barrels

Two days in Tuscany

Cecchi’s wines have always wowed the indies who visit – and this year’s Wine Merchant trip was no exception. Our destinations: Maremma, Montalcino and – of course – Chianti Classico

Landing in Pisa, it’s astonishing to see how close the airport is to the city; you’re literally off the plane and straight into the thick of it. Cecchi export director Francesco Vitulli says the airport used to be isolated, but the city has expanded out to it over the years – so much so that he just walks to the airport now. Francesco takes us to La Bottega del Parco where Cecchi’s newest wines from Maremma, Calipte rosé and Caprifoglio Viognier, are being poured and they are the perfect aperitifs. The rosé, made from 100% Sangiovese, is pure and juicy whilst retaining that savoury edge synonymous with the variety. The Viognier is delicately floral with a vibrant palate of crunchy exotic fruit, salt and a citrus rind texture. Both bottle designs are inspired by Maremma’s floral landscape with Calipte

conveying this through an eye-catching direct print on the bottle.

As the steak arrives, the wines begin to get more serious with Poggio al Leone Morellino di Scansano Riserva DOCG 2015 and 2017. This is one of the top wines from Cecchi’s Val delle Rose Maremma estate: the wines are truly representative of this hotter part of Tuscany, with more marked power and intensity.

So, with a proper Tuscan dinner under our now loosened belts, it’s only right that we make a quick trip to one of Pisa’s lesserknown landmarks, the leaning tower.

Maremma and Montalcino

The first stop on our two-day tour of Cecchi’s Tuscan operation is Maremma. Standing on the terrace overlooking the vineyards, Francesco points out the

vineyard that accompanied last night’s steak, Poggio al Leone: “the lion’s hill”. It sits like a beret on top of the head and heart of Cecchi’s organic 130ha estate. Through various openings on the terrace floor, grapes are fed by gravity into the winery.

Since 2011 Cecchi has been redeveloping the winery and cellar. Even though we are visiting in a moment of rest for the winery, it’s hard to imagine chaos, even during the demands of harvest. Everything is about precision: the winery is split into sections based on wine style.

All of Cecchi’s vast Maremma portfolio is produced here, from La Mora, its entry-level Morellino di Scansano, to Val delle Rose Poggio al Leone Morellino di Scansano Riserva and Vermentino. And that’s not even close to an exhaustive list.

Cecchi’s Aminta estate in Montalcino

As the lift lowers us into the peace of the cellar, we are greeted with a placid sea of oak barrels and the addictive, sweet woody smell that goes with it. Everyone begins speaking in a lowered tone, as if not to wake the sleeping children. The calm is broken when winemaker Andrea Fioriello, keen to taste, flips a barrel on its head to use as an impromptu table. We get the feeling he’s done that before.

We separately sample two of the three different vessel components for the Cobalto Vermentino. Comparing the oak aged component from a second-fill tonneau to the portion matured in concrete, the difference is astonishing. Both reveal the vital acidity of Vermentino, but the concrete shows a cold, clean lift of fruit compared to the oak which feels more hindered in comparison.

There’s a trend of vessel diversification across the full Cecchi portfolio as it reduces oak use. It’s all about finding the best mechanisms for conveying terroir and varietal character.

“Aminta Rosso di Montalcino is the best I have ever tasted”

Marc Hough Cork of the North

Maremma tasting highlights

Val delle Rose Litorale Rosé 2024

This knows exactly what it wants to be: light and fresh with waves of lemon zest and crunchy strawberries. It absolutely overdelivers for the price.

Val delle Rose Litorale Vermentino 2024

Typical Vermentino hallmarks: lemon, white peach, blossom and dried herbs. It’s salty, clean and precise. Great value with lots of commercial viability.

Val delle Rose Rosamante Morellino di Scansano 2023

90% Sangiovese, 10% Merlot. Sticky black cherries and fleshy red plums, it’s unashamedly fruit-forward with a flickering of dried herbs and a balsamic lift. Grippy, tight and vibrant on the palate.

Montalcino

Acquired in 2018, but launching its first vintages only this year Cecchi’s Aminta estate represents a huge milestone in its undying pursuit of quality. The land costs here are astronomical– around €1m per hectare on average– so this 6ha estate represents a financial commitment worthy of the world-class wines that can be created here. Plans are already in place for investment into the winery, and parcelspecific soil mapping.

It's a truly magical place, patchworks of herbs, wild flowers and cypress trees buzz with life as a soft pincer movement of winds swirl the subtle smell of jasmine all around.

We look over the famous rolling hills of Montalcino as if they have just been painted for us, everything thrives under the watchful eye of Mount Amiata, which at 1700m heavily impacts rainfall, temperature and wind patterns. Its influence on the region is honoured in Cecchi’s Montalcino wines, Aminta, a merging of (Mount) Amiata and Anita, the name of CEO Andrea Cecchi’s mother.

Montalcino tasting highlights

Aminta Rosso di Montalcino 2023

This shows total respect for Sangiovese. Perfumed cherries and cranberries are wrapped in violets, tomato leaf and citrus peel – really pretty. It’s glossy and vibrant on the palate with tight, juicy tannins. Dried clementine and a prickling spice lace a long finish. It’s cold, hard, honest varietal purity.

Aminta Brunello di Montalcino 2020

This is very serious. Seductive, elusive and full of interest. It’s a wine that commands time and attention. The fruit is darker and riper, lined with sweet spice, tobacco and dried earth. Black cherries and spiced orange bleed through the perfectly poised tannins. Insanely long and dynamic. Pure class.

Marc Hough (Cork of the North), Melissa Tofani (Loki), Andrea Cecchi, Libby Frangopoulos (Taurus Wines) and Bryan Houde (Wine Monkey)

Chianti Classico

Chianti Classico is the historic base for the Cecchi operation. Its holding is split between two estates, Villa Cerna and Villa Rosa. Villa Cerna sits on the Primocolle, the first hill of Chianti Classico as you approach from Siena in the south. We are greeted by CEO Andrea Cecchi who jokes that his father chose this estate in the 1960s so that he wouldn’t have to drive on the winding roads in the eastern side of the region. But in reality, he had chosen this land because he believed in the potential of Chianti Classico and knew that this is where Cecchi’s future must lie.

Vineyards sprawl between olive groves and cypress trees across Cecchi’s 95ha holding. Cecchi is one of the region’s most influential players with a portfolio that expresses every side of Chianti Classico in terms of price and quality designation.

In the 1990s Cecchi began investing heavily in viticulture and that commitment remains today. Initiatives to convert to 100% organic as well as replanting with Guyot on selected low-vigour rootstocks are just two examples of this meticulous approach.

In the cellar, the story remains the same. Oak use is decreasing, and format size is increasing, concrete is more prevalent, and the priority is on fruit and more approachable tannin structures.

Chianti Classico tasting highlights

Villa Cerna Chianti Classico Riserva 2021

Restrained and delicate with dried flowers lifting a cherry-fuelled core. There’s flicks of dried herbs and spice underneath too. This is very Chianti: it would be the perfect wine for someone wanting to understand the region in one sip.

Villa Rosa Ribaldoni Chianti Classico 2021

Villa Rosa is a prestigious estate that Cecchi acquired in 2014. The soils here have a rocky limestone component alongside the typical clay of the region. Made from 100% Sangiovese re-planted in Guyot, the palate is so alive, shockwaves of electric cherry dart around a mineral nerve. You can taste the vibrancy of limestone here; it’s a transparent expression of place.

Feedback from indies

Libby Frangopoulos (Taurus Wines)

It was the warmth and hospitality of the Cecchi family and team that left the most lasting impression, as well as their passion and knowledge. Not only have they established themselves as a serious producer of the region’s top wines, they’ve also really nailed the £10£20 price bracket. These wines are of exceptional quality and show distinctive personality.

What I most enjoyed was the difference in the expression of Sangiovese, from the more muscular wines of Val delle Rose in Maremma to the more savoury Brunello di Montalcino from Aminta, and the delicate, floral Chiantis of Villa Cerna and Villa Rosa. My favourite wine would have to be the Rosso di Montalcino – with supple, ripe red fruits and fresh acidity, it was a perfect expression of the elegance of Sangiovese. The wine had weight and texture without overpowering or detracting from its purity, and there was a wonderfully savoury complexity to the finish. Wild strawberries, orange peel, dried rosemary, cherries, and violets. In sum, a perfect wine!

“The wines were rich, vibrant and full of personality”

Bryan Houde (Wine Monkey)

Not having been to Tuscany before, I didn’t know what to expect. Would it really be like Under the Tuscan Sun? Or was that all hyped up for the movie? I can safely say that it is all that I was expecting.

It probably helps that its vineyards are surrounded by the most beautiful countryside you’ve ever seen, but Cecchi’s wines were excellent, the people were extremely friendly and welcoming, and the vineyard management is top-notch. As an expert in oeno-tourism, I was also very impressed with the facilities that it’s built and the quality of the offering. Plus, the food in their restaurants was fantastic.

I was impressed with everything we tasted. The wines were rich, vibrant and full of personality: some great drinkers, and others completely gastronomic. I’ve decided to import a wide range.

Val delle Rose winemaker Andrea Fioriello

The Val delle Rose estate in Maremma

Marc Hough (Cork of the North)

We all love a trip, but this one really was something special. Cecchi may be the second largest producer in the Chianti Classico region, but after 130 years of winemaking in the family, they have clearly never lost touch with their humble beginnings. And while they never forget the past, they are very much looking into the future.

From the Chianti Classico region, there were two reds that really stood out, both of them from single vineyard plots. The Villa Cerna Primo Colle Chianti Classico DOCG 2022 was both powerful and elegant, with prominent red and black fruits on the palate, boasting smooth tannins that make it incredibly food friendly.

But it was the elegance of the Villa Rosa Ribaldoni Chianti Classico DOCG 2021 that impressed me the most. As you would expect, it was medium-bodied and quite lean, but the red fruits on the palate were incredibly persistent, with a super-long finish. I kept going back to try this again and again during the tasting, as it evolved quite spectacularly as it opened up in the glass over a period of an hour or so. This really is a remarkably rewarding wine for the price – I worked out I could retail this for £20 a bottle, and at that price point, I’m all over it like a bulldog eating a sausage. I was rather taken by some of Cecchi’s white wines, too. I never thought I’d use the words “Viognier” and “Italian” in the same sentence, but I was blown away by the Cecchi Viognier 2024, which was fresh as a daisy, nice and fruity, but without the pithiness or oiliness that is so often the trademark of French Viognier.

Also, I was again surprised to discover that it was a white that impressed me the most in Maremma, and the Val delle Rose Litorale Vermentino 2024 is a fruity little minx with plenty of character. Although it has plenty of body and a complex flavour profile reminiscent of a fruit cocktail, it is clean, fresh and incredibly moreish; I can see this flying off the shelves at around £16 a pop. It’s a great summer white, and not only does the label, adorned with deckchairs, give it plenty of kerb appeal, but this is also a wine that I will be offering by the glass in our bars. It’s a party banger.

But by a country mile, the best wine I had was on our visit to Montalcino. Sat in the back of a car going up that hill and round all those tight bends at high speed after a brilliantly boozy lunch left me feeling decidedly queasy by the time we had reached the top of the hill. But bloody hell ... it was definitely worth all the effort. The absolutely incredible Aminta Rosso di Montalcino 2023 is an utter triumph. It blew me away and provided me with one of those rare moments that all of us wine merchants occasionally enjoy – when we taste something so sublime, we are rendered speechless.

This Rosso di Montalcino was the real deal. It has the lot: power, elegance, purity, and it’s brimming with supple red fruit flavours, particularly redcurrant. It managed to be both sweet and savoury at the same time. Not only was this the best Rosso di Montalcino I had ever tasted, but its quality even outshone the Brunello di Montalcino that followed. Tasting this wine reminded me why I do what I do, and I could very happily request this as my death row wine. If I was going to wash my last lunch down with a nice red before the electric chair, this one would probably be it.

On the drive back to Siena, we spent an entire hour trying to decide what would be the perfect gastronomic pairing for the Rosso di Montalcino, and in the end, we decided it should be kept simple: a fresh tomato and aged pecorino bruschetta, topped with a few torn basil leaves, and drizzled with very best olive oil you can get. It was on our final lunch of the trip, when I sat next to the head of the family, current CEO Andrea Cecchi, and heard all about his family’s history and winemaking philosophy, it was here when I decided that I would definitely start working with them. It will be a real privilege to sell their wines.

Thanks to Cecchi for funding our visit

In the UK, the wines are usually shipped direct to merchants, with sales handled by Vinexus. For more information contact Cecchi export direct Francesco Vitulli: fvitulli@cecchi.net or Gaetano Alabiso at Vinexus: gaetano@vinexus.co.uk.

Marc Hough can’t hide his feelings

Andrea Cecchi gives us the local low-down

JACOB STOKES

First Press

It’s time to unveil my vinous Galacticos, and of course we have a Riesling in goal

Despite the increasing slenderness of the football off-season, it still remains a time of twiddling thumbs for eager fans. A time mainly dominated by fantasy transfer news and speculation. Every year my routine response to this barren period is to pedantically debate every possible best XI with my fellow recreational pundits.

Now, with the season underway, it got me thinking: what if I applied the same concept to wine?

Here are the guiding principles. Wines are placed into positions based on what I suspect their qualities would be on the pitch, which can encompass their vinous personalities, footballers from their country of origin and reputation on the global wine stage.

It’s an international XI; players are to be pooled from across the globe. Easterly and westerly locations are the metric for dictating left and right positions on the field.

Goalkeeper: We need the height of a flute bottle between the sticks. We need calmness and consistency, an organiser with the ability to play out from the back. It’s got to be Riesling. It can’t be Mosel, that’s too old guard – more of a Schmeichel figure than a modern goalkeeper. So, let’s go with a bone-dry GG Riesling from the Rheingau. Vertical in nature with the discipline of a no-sugar diet off the pitch.

Full backs: I’m an advocate for the modern

full back, where attacking qualities are just as important as defensive ability. That suggests the necessity for a blend, in this case a white field blend from the Douro, where unique local varieties find harmony on the field of play: a literal difference maker on the pitch. Flowing westward, the Douro native slots in at left back.

Pomerol fits the bill at right back, a Merlot-dominant blend with the ability to display layers of flexibility in its game despite the conditions. Skilful with understated muscle and hardy experience. Drop this wise old nut into midfield any time and it’ll do you a job there too. Dare I say James Milner?

Centre backs: I want a pairing of Italian giants at the back: think Maldini and Baresi, Cannavaro and Nesta. Where elegance and class are in just as much abundance as dominance and power. Something in touch with the darker arts,

born out of sacred land. There’s only one choice ... Barolo and Barbaresco. The elegance of roses and violets, the malice of smoke and tar, the brutality of tannin and acid with a global reputation for the highest quality.

Midfield three: It’s 2025, and of course we’re playing a 4-3-3. And naturally there’s a holder in the middle. A position that somehow just reminds me of Spain, Pep Guardiola, Sergio Busquets, Xabi Alonso, Rodri and now Rioja. Scrupulously aged prior to release, it appears fully formed, boasting wisdom, prudence and balance, with a nomadic stamina. All necessary foundations for the demands of this crucial role in the contemporary era.

But who plays either side of Rioja? Here we need ability over sensibility, artistry over tactics, flair over discipline and elegance over strength. Red Burgundy has to play a role here, more specifically Côte de Nuits: let’s go Gevrey-Chambertin. What more is there to say? And with Dijon lying in the east of France, it plays on the right. If Gevrey-Chambertin is our Zidane, that’s enough heavily receding bigheadedness for one midfield. So, I’m venturing back to Italy, more specifically Montalcino. But for me, not Brunello. I want its more youthful, fresh faced, enthusiastic little brother. Light on its feet with a big point to prove, it looks up to its elder but sees the flaws in its game: the broadness, the seriousness, the hesitance. Rosso plays with a smile on its face, with a love for the beautiful game in its heart.

Attacking three: I’m going to allow my biases to run free here. Anyone who knows me well appreciates that South African Chenin Blanc, Vermentino di Gallura and Valtellina Nebbiolo are my trifactor of untamed pleasure. And they arbitrarily line my attack. People will question my credibility, maybe fairly. People will say I have favourites; absolutely. People might even claim “you can’t win anything with kids”. Well look how that went last time. I say give the youngsters a chance.

Manager: “The special one”: Dirk Niepoort. It’s a Portuguese thing.

Burgundy’s equivalent of Zinadine Zidane

Hi Bibiana. Could you tell us what your Cattleya project is all about?

Cattleya is the culmination of my dreams and a global journey, born in 2011 from a single barrel of Syrah sourced from Soberanes vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands. From that humble beginning, I set out to create wines that reflect my winemaking philosophy: a seamless blend of French training, Colombian sensitivity, and nearly three decades of hands-on winemaking across the world, now firmly rooted in California.

I immersed myself in the rigour and elegance of winemaking, pruning vines on Côte Rôtie’s steep slopes, conducting research at Château Haut Brion and La Mission Haut Brion, and gaining hands-on experience in Burgundy, Alsace, Cognac, and beyond. That foundation propelled me through wine regions across South Africa, California, and France, until I finally made California home.

Now, each wine under Cattleya is a curated expression of specific vineyards I choose – vineyard sites that speak to both my heart and head, crafted with precision, soul, and a deep respect for terroir.

You’ve worked all over the world. Where did you gain the most experience and what did you learn along the way?

The greatest foundation of my winemaking lies in France, with formal study at the University of Bordeaux and handson experience in Cognac, Côte-Rôtie, Burgundy, and Bordeaux’s grand estates. It was in those vineyards and cellars that I absorbed a singular truth: excellence arises from meticulous care, unwavering attention to detail, and unrelenting passion – the ingredients for wines of extraordinary quality.

2023 Alma de Cattleya Chardonnay, Sonoma County RRP £33.95

The coastal influence on these sites between Russian River AVA and the Sonoma Coast provides acidity, texture and length. Grapes are fermented in neutral French oak where the wine then ages for nine months. Flavours of apple, orange zest and honeysuckle.

Bibiana González Rave knew she would become a winemaker at the age of 14. After studying chemical engineering and business, she moved to Bordeaux to study viticulture and oenology. Her newest venture, Alma de Cattleya, represents the soul of the California appellation where the wines are made. Alma means “soul” in Spanish and Cattleya is the national flower of her native country, Colombia.

Sponsored feature Wines are imported by Jeroboams

The Winemaker Files

What is your ethos as a winemaker?

Everything starts in the vineyard. I seek out individual vineyard plots with uncompromising farming and profound terroir character. In the cellar, minimal intervention is my credo: hand harvesting and hand sorting, grape handling by gravity and wine transfers by inert gas. I make decisions on pressing, punch-downs and ageing based on taste and intuition whilst also obsessively guarding against oxidation to respect the wine’s memory and purity

How has California developed as a wine region over the years?

Since arriving in California in 2004, I’ve witnessed substantial changes in viticulture and winemaking. Growers increasingly embrace sustainable practices, respectful farming, and a long-term view of vineyard health. These priorities have elevated the balance, purity, and longevity

2022 Alma de Cattleya Pinot Noir, Sonoma County RRP £39.95

Fruit is mainly sourced from Russian River but also the wider Sonoma Coast. After a short cold soak, the juice is fermented in stainless steel and after gentle pressing the wine ages for nine months in neutral French oak. Purity, freshness and approachability here, without sacrificing complexity.

of the region’s wines.

My work is primarily focused in Sonoma County, with occasional contributions from Napa and the Santa Lucia Highlands. Drawing from my experience in France, I’ve always prioritised creating wines defined by elegance, vibrant acidity, and refined tannins, built for ageability. Combined with California’s capacity for both power and finesse, I believe these wines now command space on the world’s best lists.

What can independents expect from California in 2025?

The vintage nearing arrival in independent retail this year will be 2023. While many consumers are currently enjoying 2022, the 2023 vintage is being hailed as one of California’s best in years. It delivered exceptional balance, natural acidity, and a beautiful structure across varietals.

2023 Cattleya Chardonnay, Sonoma Coast RRP £63

Made from two vineyards sitting above 1,000 feet in elevation: Sun Chase and Nightwing. Early morning hand harvesting, hand sorting, native fermentation in 60% new French oak and bottling without fining or filtering are just some of the techniques used to create this expressive Chardonnay.

The essence of England

Hattingley Valley has become one of the pre-eminent wine producers in the UK –not simply by focusing just on its Hampshire heartland, but embracing fruit from specific terroirs across the southern counties

With a long history running a mixed arable and livestock farm north east of Winchester, it was at the turn of the millennium when the Robinson family started thinking about diversifying into wine.

“We were happy to go into the wine business because we were interested in it,” says CEO Simon Robinson. “I personally had an interest spanning back to my university days, but also because in that period came the first reports of very good English wine being made. So, on investigation and with a little bit of research, we decided to give it a go and planted our first vineyard in 2008.”

Simon’s attention then turned quickly to a winery. “The site became available in 2009, but the buildings on the site were pretty awful. We had to raze them and start again from scratch, which meant that we could fully optimise the space,” he says.

“Back then, and still to some extent today, there was a huge shortage of decent winery capacity. We began to realise how

essential decent capacity, in the form of high-quality equipment and staff, was in order to make good wine.”

Simon says “the vision of Hattingley Valley has developed over time, but our number one aim has remained the same throughout – to satisfy the consumer through approachability”.

He explains: “We’ve taken on board what the Aussies did over the 60s, 70s and 80s – they constantly improved their wine to appeal to a wider and wider audience. We’re not prepared to say, ‘well, if you don’t like our wine, then go somewhere else’. We want to make sure our wine is appropriate for the widest band of consumers.”

Hattingley Valley owes much of its approachability and reliability to a multi-regional grape sourcing programme that pools the individual qualities from a range of terroirs across the country. From chalk in Hampshire, sandstone in Kent and sandy loam in Suffolk and Essex, the expression of these

various microclimates allows for a style that captures “the essence of England in a glass”, says sales and marketing director Chris Unger.

“The story of growth in English wine of course involves the terroir, but more important than that has been the large sums of capital investment and most importantly the entrance of professional expertise,” he says.

“One of the problems with English wine in the 50s and 60s was that it was all very small-scale: they had the wrong varieties planted, in many cases, and they didn’t have the right kit or expertise.”

Simon adds: “I can’t say that we knew we would grow as large as we have, but from my background, working with big corporations at a high level, being big didn’t worry me unduly. In fact it was quite the reverse; I could see the advantages of being larger.

“We focus on what we do well. We don’t want to be distracted by running cellar doors, restaurants and so on, because they are other businesses. The vineyard and winery have to be a stand-alone success.”

Overseas sales have been another Hattingley success story. “It seemed extraordinary at the time. but from the beginning I felt that exports were going to be a critical part of any successful wine business in this country,” Simon says. “Today, exporting roughly 35% of our sales, we believe that’s one of the highest as a percentage, and the [English wine] industry average is 9%.

“I’ve always had my eye on a figure like 75% going to export, and if you ask me

CEO Simon Robinson Sales and marketing director Chris Unger

A taste of Hattingley

Three highlights from the range, created by head winemaker Rob MacCullough MW

Hattingley Valley Blanc de Blancs 2018

From the excellent 2018 vintage, the Chardonnay grapes for this were handpicked and gently wholebunch pressed. Approximately 13% of the total blend was fermented in old Burgundy barrels, and partial malolactic fermentation took place, providing a round and creamy texture. The wine spent six months in tank and barrel before undergoing secondary fermentation and more than five years ageing in bottle. The result is a radiant pale gold colour with fresh aromas of hedgerow, green apple, and quince jam, lifted by bright citrus zest. It’s creamy and textured, with buttered brioche and golden toast leading into a long, dry, and savoury finish.

why I couldn’t give a logical answer. It just feels right.”

In its pursuit of market diversification, Hattingley Valley has shifted its focus to indies. Chris explains: “Our growing sales team is now headed up by someone with experience in independent retail. We really want to drive forward with indies over the next 12 months as we feel we are in a better position to do so now compared to in the past.”

Simon adds: “Marketing for us is about supporting customers. It’s not about paying shedloads to be at cricket tournaments –it’s about being able to support sales, and now we can do that on a larger scale.”

In terms of style, Hattingley Valley offers a great opportunity for indies to stock a wine that can offer a multi-regional snapshot. Chris says: “We know that indies are quite regional with their sourcing of English wine; they will often use a local winery within a certain radius.

“What we can offer in contrast is a go-to wine from a broad catchment area that is reliable and approachable. We are happy to be that go-to wine for consumers looking for an all-encapsulating English wine.”

• Prior to planting Hattingley’s vineyards, Simon commissioned a survey of flora and fauna on his farm in Hampshire, which led to the discovery that the silver-washed fritillary butterfly, common in continental Europe but rare in Britain, was a summer resident. The delicate ecosystem in this part of Hampshire was enhanced by his planting of around seven miles of hedgerow under a countryside stewardship scheme. It was a natural choice to weave the fritillary into Hattingley’s brand identity.

Hattingley Valley Rosé 2021

The 2021 vintage required patience and time to shine. It was a year with a fairly problematic and long growing season, and although it wasn’t a big harvest, what did come in was of high quality. This shows a cascade of fine, persistent bubbles. The nose is vibrant and inviting, bursting with the red fruit freshness of delicate strawberries and summer raspberries, elevated by a hint of passion fruit. Light and creamy with hints of buttery shortbread and cherries.

Hattingley Valley Vintage Cuvée 2019

Exclusive to Vindependents, the Vintage Cuvée is blended from select parcels of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier from a single year. Partially aged in oak barrels, the wine spends an extended period of more than four years on the lees before disgorgement. Displaying aromas of lemon zest, orange peel and honeysuckle with brioche and baked apple on the palate, this is an elegant wine with depth and texture: all hallmarks of Hattingley’s house style.

Sponsored feature Indies can buy Hattingley Valley wines through Enotria&Coe; or Vindependents, where The English Gent, a traditional-method Bacchus and Pinot Gris blend is available, as well as an exclusive vintage cuvée; and direct from the winery.

Blended with fruit from prime vineyard sites in a broad catchment area

Picture: Rebecca Hope

Charles Taylor Wines White Burgundy Tasting

A first chance to taste 2024 wines, with some older vintages also on show. Domaine-bottled wines will be poured from a selection of appellations in the Côte d’Or, including Meursault, Chassagne and Puligny-Montrachet, together with wines from Chablis, Chalonnais and Mâconnais. Alongside will be wines from lesserknown villages including Santenay, Maranges, Rully, Monthelie and Saint Aubin. Email office@charlestaylorwines.com.

Wednesday, October 1

Charles Taylor Wines

11 Catherine Place

London SW1E 6DX

Cap Classique Tasting

A drop-in free-pour tasting offering visitors the chance to taste a diverse selection of South Africa’s signature sparkling wines, all of which are available in the UK market.

Email clare@island-media.co.uk.

Monday, October 6

High Timber Broken Wharf House 8 High Timber Street

London EC4V 3PA

Bordeaux Grands

Crus Classés

Tasting

Taste a selection of wines from the 2021-2024 vintages. These include Château Branaire-

Ducru, Château Canon, Château Canon La Gaffelière, Château Gazin, Château Guiraud, Château Léoville Poyferré, Château

Montrose, Château Pontet-Canet, Château Rauzan-Ségla and Château Smith Haut Lafitte. Contact celine@otaria.co.uk.

Tuesday, October 7

Church House

Dean’s Yard

London SW1P 3NZ

FortyFive10°

Trade

Tasting

The event will showcase more than 100 wines from across Italy, with a focus on indigenous varieties and minimalintervention wines.

Attending producers include Orlando Abrigo (Barbaresco, Piedmont), Antonelli di San Marco (Montefalco, Umbria), Brigaldara (Valpolicella, Veneto), Enza La Fauci/Giovi (Messina, Sicily), Manincor (Caldaro, Alto Adige), Mastrojanni (Montalcino, Tuscany), MonteRossa (Franciacorta, Lombardy), Pojer e Sandri (Faedo, Trentino), Castello di Vicarello (Maremma, Tuscany) and Vignamato (Castelli di Jesi, Marche). Contact masi@fortyfive10.com.

Tuesday, October 7

Swan Lodge 21 New Globe Walk London SE1 9DT

Parched No & Low Tasting

Hosted by Tom Surgey, this is a walkaround tasting of no and lowalcohol drinks available in the UK.

There will be masterclasses and demonstrations covering wine, beer, tea, kombucha, spirits and functional drinks.

Producers include Babylonstoren, Botivo, Bolle, Everleaf, Firebrand Brewing

Co, Freed From, Jukes Cordialities, Kahlo Spirits, Myth, No & Flow Brands, Nolia, Saicho Sparkling Tea, Sentia Spirits and The REAL Company.

For registration, contact clare@islandmedia.co.uk.

Wednesday, October 8

Crypt on the Green

St James Church

London EC1R 0EA

Love Wine Love Slovenia Tasting

Explore a selection of Slovenian wines from each of the main regions: Primorska, Podravska and Posavska. This tasting will emphasise Slovenian wine tourism and producers’ commitment to sustainability. Masterclasses TBA. Contact christopher@clerissa.com.

Monday, October 20

Vintners’ Hall

68 Upper Thames Street London EC4V 3BG

Sustainability in Drinks

SID’s second edition focuses on all aspects of sustainability in the industry. It claims to be the largest collaboration of global sustainability advisory bodies for the drinks industry ever seen in the UK.

There will be a keynote talk from Prof Paul Behrens of Oxford University and an introduction by Jancis Robinson MW. Alongside a showcase of products and services, the programme will feature workshops, talks, panels, networking and tastings.

Email hello@sustainabilityindrinks.com.

Tuesday, October 21

St Mary’s London York Street, London W1H 1PQ

The Cynic’s Guide to Wine

In this exclusive Wine Merchant mini-series Sunny Hodge, author of The Cynic’s Guide to Wine, extrapolates a single topic from each chapter of his book.

The book lays out the scientific connections in wine, from soil to fruit to glass, and onwards to our own sensory perception. It references the latest in soil science, viticulture, microbiology and neuroscience to present wine professionals and experts, ensuring what we say about wine is technically and scientifically correct.

Chapter 6: Manipulations in the winery

A menacing chapter title which goes into the nitty-gritty of winemaking adulterations, some of which we may know well and be perfectly adjusted to, yet others may be new to us in front-of-house roles.

Words like hyper-oxidisation, dimethyl dicarbonate, flash détente, pectin and thermovinification are all thrown into the mix. It’s well worth picking up a copy of the book just to get your head around what’s done in many commercial wineries nowadays.

All these “manipulations” sound pretty frightening, but what about the other side of wine production – the unadulterated natural wine end of the spectrum? A question I’m often asked, or more accurately a statement that is often projected at me whilst serving them, is: “Natural wines don’t give you hangovers, right?”

Well, let’s dissect this a little bit. Knowing that natural wine has no current legal definition, let’s assume that by natural wine we mean low or no sulphur dioxide and a natural ferment (ie no bought yeast added). Science brings up three valuable points to assist you in manoeuvring this common assumption.

Point 1

Less sulphur in your wine won’t make much difference to you, unless you’re part of the minority of sulphur sensitivity sufferers (currently less than 2% of the UK) or have respiratory issues like asthma.

Point 2

Sulphur is an antioxidant, therefore less sulphur added to your ferment will permit more oxygen in. Too much oxygen may invite your alcohol (ethanol) to react with the oxygen and form the bruisedapple-smelling compound acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde in your ferment is the same

toxic substance that is formed when your body breaks down ethanol after drinking it, and the same acetaldehyde responsible for some of your hangover symptoms like headaches, dry mouth and nausea.

Point 3

In a natural fermentation we’re not adding armies of our primary fermentation yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) to our grape must, hence there’s more space for competitor microbes to get stuck in and make a difference, be it positive or negative. Non-Saccharomyces yeasts like Kloeckera apiculata can also create more of this undesirable acetaldehyde, which is directly responsible for hangover symptoms.

On a personal note, I am a huge advocate for better farming, less food adulteration, and an all-round supporter of well-made natural wines. It saddens me to think that, counterintuitively, “natural wines” pose a higher risk of hangover. More reason, I say, to drink less and better!

Follow @sunnyhodgewine on Instagram for more handy wine science facts.

The Cynic’s Guide to Wine is available online at Waterstones, Amazon, Academie du Vin Library and all good book retailers.

Pic: Daniel Ogulewicz

79 north

Reading

Berkshire RG6 5TL

0118 469 3437

wine@seventy9north.co.uk

www.seventy9north.co.uk

The Woolyard 52 Bermondsey Street London SE1 3UD

020 7840 3600

info@mentzendorff.co.uk

www.mentzendorff.co.uk

Organic

schenk family uk

Unit 5, The E Centre

Easthampstead Road

Bracknell RG12 1NF

01753 521336

info@buckingham-schenk.co.uk www.buckingham-schenk.co.uk @schenkfamilyuk

From the utmost expression of our vines merging with the natural ecosystem that surrounds them, the LoAlto wines emerge.

A unique project that eloquently reflects the richness of an ancient culture and the personality of the Mediterranean.

liberty wines

020 7720 5350

order@libertywines.co.uk www.libertywines.co.uk

@liberty_wines

Exceptional site-specific wines from Fleurie, Moulin-à-Vent and Morgon

With over 300 identified soil profiles, Beaujolais is geologically rich and complex. There are around 600 registered lieux-dits in the Beaujolais Cru area alone, increasingly named on the labels of the distinctive wines that originate there. Since 2019, winegrowers seeking to promote the unique characteristics and potential of their lieux-dits have embarked on a joint mission to gain recognition for the most renowned sites. In late 2023, the winegrowers of Fleurie officially applied to the INAO for seven of their lieux-dits to be upgraded to Premier Cru status, followed a few months later by Moulin-à-Vent (14 lieux-dits) and Brouilly (16 lieux-dits).

The lengthy assessment process means it will be some time before we see the first classified Beaujolais Premier Crus, so why not explore sitespecific wines from lieux-dits in the running in the meantime. Guillaume Chanudet’s elegant and supple Fleurie La Madone hails from a 1.2-hectare plot planted in 1963 on pink granite soils within what is widely regarded to be the finest site in the Cru. The intensely concentrated Moulin-à-Vent La Rochelle from Château du Moulin-à-Vent is sourced from low-yielding 80-year-old vines on granite/clay/sand soils in arguably the Cru’s top single vineyard. And Jean-Marc Burgaud’s Morgon Côte du Py comes from the estate’s seven hectares within this famed lieu-dit, planted in 1960 on one of the few outcrops of decomposed blue rock in Beaujolais, which gives great structure to the wine.

hatch mansfield

New Bank House

1 Brockenhurst Road

Ascot SL5 9DL 01344 871800

info@hatch.co.uk www.hatchmansfield.com

Hatch Mansfield

hatchmansfield

AWIN BARRATT SIEGEL WINE AGENCIES

28 Recreation Ground Road

Stamford

Lincolnshire PE9 1EW 01780 755810

orders@abs.wine www.abs.wine

@ABSWines

richmond wine agencies

The

Links, Popham Close

Hanworth TW13 6JE 020 8744 5550

Mark Isham, south & London: mark@richmondwineagencies.com

Julia Langshaw, north of the UK: julia@richmondwineagencies.com

Tim Hawtin, south west & London: tim@richmondwineagencies.com

walker & Wodehouse

Ground Floor

Bibendum Matthew Clark 16 St Martin’s Le Grand London EC1A 4EN

0207 449 1665 orders@walkerwodehousewines.com www.walkerwodehousewines.com

@WalkerWodehouse

RWA are pleased to introduce you to our new team member – Monika Kent.

Originally from the south west of Poland (the country’s oldest winemaking region) Monika has spent the past 20 years living in the UK, building a career in hospitality management across various sectors.

For the past seven years, she has worked for one of the top independent retailers in north of England, where her passion for wine truly took root.

She is genuinely interested in how wine regions are becoming increasingly innovative and forward thinking in their approach to sustainability.

When not studying wine maps, you’ll find her spending time with her little family of three, at the gym, in the garden or simply enjoying the great outdoors. Monika’s role is a sales account manager mainly covering the north and Scotland or wherever the road takes her!

RWA Autumn Tasting Events

Sept 15: SITT, Royal Horticultural Halls, London 10.30am-5pm

Sept 17: SITT etc. venues, Manchester 10.30am-5pm

Sept 30: Paintworks Event Space, Bristol 10am- 4pm Oct 23: Wadham College, Oxford 11am-3pm

RSVP to info@richmondwineagencies.com

Making the most of Burgundy

This September we are offering some fantastic priced deals on selected Burgundy, including Crémant, Chablis and Beaujolais.

• Bailly Lapierre Cremant de Bourgogne

• Montagny Blanc Pierre Blanche

• La Chablisienne Chablis Le Finage

• Selection de Baron Vauxonne Fleurie

• Bourgogne Pinot Noir La Moutonniere Domaine Roux

Please contact your account manager for more information or to place an order.

Mention the Burgundy offer to claim a sample bottle for each product bought and we’ll send it with your order.

Fells

Fells House, Station Road

Kings Langley WD4 8LH

01442 870 900

For more details about these wines and other wines from our awardwinning portfolio from some of the world’s leading wine producing families contact:

info@fells.co.uk www.fells.co.uk

@FellsWine

je_fells

ivo varbanov wines selection

ivo@ivovarbanov.com www.ivovarbanov.com

Telephone: 07956 377705

Best Value Fortified/Sweet Wine Trophy Winner 2025

“There’s some lifted and balanced sweetness with gentle apricot fruit and some floral dimensions, great acidity and a delicious drizzle of the best honey. Lovely!”

Meaning ‘as it comes’, Szamorodni is a style of sweet Tokaji whose profile reflects the use of whole bunches of botrytised overripe grapes, and fresh berries. This blend preserves acidity and freshness, whilst delivering the luscious, sweet flavours for which Tokaji is renowned.

Ivo Varbanov Wines Selection

Ivo Varbanov, a classical concert pianist based in London, owns a 10-hectare vineyard in his native Bulgaria and has been selling his wines in the UK for over 13 years. Since 2017, he has been a member of the Académie Internationale du Vin, having been personally introduced – parrainé – by Steven Spurrier and Angelo Gaja, as membership is by invitation only. As a founding member of the Bulgarian Association of Independent Winegrowers, he has, over the past three years, curated a hand-picked portfolio of nearly 200 wines from Italy, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Greece, and Spain, working primarily with London’s hospitality sector. His selection focuses on familyowned estates that form part of the growing European Independent Winegrowers community. The range is known for its exciting character, excellent value, and outstanding food-pairing potential. In summer 2025, the team welcomed Filippo Pastorini, former wine and sake director at Sushi Samba Group, further strengthening its expertise.

Testimonial: Mario Tomekovic, wine buyer at The Sampler: “Meeting Ivo for the first time was a wonderful surprise and pleasure. His direct and relaxed approach is exactly what we look for in suppliers. With an exciting portfolio ranging from his own Bulgarian wines to an extensive and carefully selected Italian, Slovenian, Spanish, and Greek range, there’s no shortage of great-value wines to choose from.”

delibo wine agencies

The Old Pigsty, Rose Cottage Church Hanborough OX29 8AA

07802 405627

orders@delibo.co.uk jamesfleetwood@delibo.co.uk robertewing@delibo.co.uk johnnybingham@delibo.co.uk gyorgyzsiga@delibo.co.uk www.delibo.co.uk

jeroboams trade

7-9 Elliott’s Place London N1 8HX

020 7288 8888

sales@jeroboamstrade.co.uk www.jeroboamstrade.co.uk

@jeroboamstrade

Sustainably supporting you for Bordeaux Wine Month

Our three family-owned producers are all HVE certified, with wines from the great vintages of 2019 and 2020.

Bastion de Camerac (Entre-Deux-Mers), with 400 years of family ownership; Château Cantenac Sélection Madame (Saint Emilion Grand Cru); Château Gassiot (Côtes de Bourg) remind us of the value, quality and finesse available from £15 to £30 RRP.

Contact James, Robert, Johnny, Gyorgy, or orders@ delibo.co.uk to learn more about these beautiful wines to offer your customers in September and beyond …

Offer: £6 off all our Bordeaux 6x75cl cases for the month of September. Santé!

THE TASTING TOUR

Embark on a Tasting Tour of over 170 wines

Proudly female-led, boutique in size, but bold in vision, this is a winery with an ethos as compelling as the wines it produces – making it a name that deserves a place on your list.

“My job is to help guide the fruit into becoming the best version of itself,”

Sarah Vandendriessche Head Winemaker

“When I’m fed up of being a grown-up, I pet doggies all day”

Kim Wilson North South Wines

Born in 1981, Kim started her drinks trade career with Carlsberg before spending nearly eight years at Ehrmanns, latterly as director of sales. She established North South Wines in 2014, a B Corp-certified import and agency business now based in Bicester, Oxfordshire, and is its managing director.

What’s the first wine you remember drinking?

Honestly I don’t remember but I do remember the first wine I drank that really resonated with me and still does – Chocolate Block. Here was a wine that did the commercials well, but which was also a proper wine. We can get snobby in the trade, but there is nothing snobby about this. I have just returned from a trip to South Africa and realised that it was exactly 20 years ago I tried this wine on my first visit to the Cape, which was a sales incentive I won back then. I am a huge fan of a South African red blend when done well.

What job would you be doing if you weren’t in the wine trade?

Easy – anything with dogs. When I am fed up of being a grown-up, I will have a doggy day care just so I can pet doggies all day (to be honest I do that now – we have a very doggy-friendly office). When reviewing new wineries to work with they will always get extra brownie points if there is a winery doggy for me to pet.

How do you relax?

A good countryside or costal path walk with the pups (and my boyfriend), followed by a pub lunch and a refreshing pint of Cornish cider.

What’s the best book you’ve recently read?

Matthew Perry’s autobiography – very sad for someone so talented.

Give us a Netflix recommendation. Love anything cowboy themed so obviously Yellowstone and all the spin-offs. I just watched the Australian version, Territory –must be the farmer’s daughter in me!

Do you have any sporting loyalties?

No, sorry – rubbish with sport!

Who’s your favourite music artist? Too embarrassed to admit it! I grew up with the rise of the boy and girl bands.

Any superstitions?

Never walk over three drains.

Who’s your favourite wine critic?

I know he is not everyone’s cup of tea, but Tom Gilbey. He’s engaging and resonates with consumers as well as being completely genuine. He isn’t afraid to diss a bad wine – but equally he isn’t afraid to tell people that a wine costing £6-£7 in Aldi is brilliant.

What’s your most treasured possession?

North South Wines, and always will be. It’s not just my company – the team are like my extended family, and it is something that I am incredibly proud of.

What’s your proudest moment?

Being in a room with my full team at our private 10-year North South Wines celebrations last year – so proud and overwhelmed I couldn’t even say anything. If you know me you know that is very rare!

What’s your biggest regret?

I always say never regret anything. Just learn from it.

Who’s your hero?

My dad. He is a total legend, he grafted his way through life as a hard-working farmer, and is the kindest and most loving person.

Any hidden talents?

I can play the cello.

What’s your favourite place in the UK?

Holywell Bay, Cornwall. I have a lodge there which means I can get away from everything with my boyfriend and the dogs, relax and enjoy the countryside, and try to forget work for at least three minutes.

If we could grant you one wish, what would it be?

No more red tape and to get back to what we all love doing – selling and enjoying all things wine. If successive governments would just stop putting hurdles in the way all the time, life would be better for everyone, and so much better for the trade and our consumers.