Adeline Mangevine Hasty despatches from the frontline of wine retailing Moreno Wines began in the late 1960s.
The range will consist of natural, organic,
biodynamic and vegan wines to take home or drink in with cheese and charcuterie.
Steeling himself for career change
Robert Bliss is giving up a career in structural steel to join the wine trade. But he says his new wine bar and shop,
The Tasting Rooms in East Grinstead,
won’t have an industrial vibe. “We’re not
sure on the exact interior yet, until we can get the keys and start stripping stuff out,”
T
he first rule of Wine Club is: you
do not talk about Wine Club. The second rule of Wine Club is: you
DO NOT talk about Wine Club! It’s just
too embarrassing to be reminded of my
pathetic attempts to get customers to buy a bit more and boost cash flow. Oh, come
on! A bricks-and-mortar shop with a club is never about helping people discover
new wines, no matter how we merchants
might kid ourselves otherwise. I certainly did back in the day when I started my club.
Of course I was keen for extra revenue.
says Bliss, who was ready to embark on
But my greater mission was to take the
in mid April.
their usual shop picks of Malbec or
eight months of “stripping out and fitting
in” when The Wine Merchant spoke to him “We’re looking to open at about the
end of June,” he adds. “It’s going to be a
time-poor, the shy and the lazy on a
journey of vinous discoveries far beyond Viognier.
Tasting notes would be hand-written,
merchant space as well as a bar; we’re
and would include not just food matches,
platters and lots of wine tastings and
personal anecdotes where possible, as
doing wine to take away, tasting rooms,
but no hot food. It’s just going to be cold hopefully a bit of online as well.”
Why abandon metalwork for Malbec?
“Construction is not a very good industry
at the moment,” says Bliss, who is an East
Grinstead native. “It’s just hard. Everyone wants to argue about money all the time and no one wants to pay.
“I’ve done my WSET 2 and 3 with a view
but also ones for music, books and films.
Enomatic machines.
“We’re also going to do an iPad app for
all the wines,” says Bliss. “We’re talking to a company in America who have already got the app written. We just send them
the list of wines and put up all the tasting notes for it.”
people walking in off the street. I just did not have time in the day to do it all. As
my number of club members dwindled, so did all the extras.
There was also the problem of
customers getting in touch saying,
actually, they only wanted red or old-
Struggling to keep customers interested in discovering new wines? Join the club
keep track of what wines I’d included in
discounts off our regular tasting events and quarterly seasonal tastings just for
wine club members. They’d get first pick
of special parcels, and I’d even chuck in a little gift at Christmas.
To launch the club, I teamed up with
on their first order. “You can leave at any
town’s High Street and will be fitted with
with all the demands of selling wines to
on trips and holidays ... then there’d be
surely I’d get to meet a fair few of them
position and the right shop to open up.” The venue will be in the West Sussex
bedroom. Harder if you have to juggle it
world wines or whatever and I started
to opening up a wine bar. We’ve been we’ve just been waiting for the right
online from your business rate-free back
I’d add photos of the winemakers and
a deli in town for a night of fizz and
talking about it for the last five years;
promised. Fine if you are running it
canapés. Anyone who signed up to the
club got the cost of their ticket refunded
time if it’s no longer for you,” I chirruped. Turned out, it wasn’t for a lot of those
who signed up on the night – and then promptly cancelled their membership after receiving their first, heavily discounted box.
Then there was fulfilling the onerous
task I’d set myself of all the extras I’d
THE WINE MERCHANT may 2019 7
doing bespoke boxes. My spreadsheet
became so complex that even I couldn’t which box for whom and I had to keep getting in new wines to keep things
fresh and interesting – bang went that additional cash flow.
Now I have just three members: my in-
laws, the deli owner and my accountant. I decide to pull the plug on the whole
thing, until Gav bounds in exclaiming: “I’ve had a brilliant idea. Let’s start a wine club! I’ve got tons of ideas!”
Gav, knock yourself out. Me? I’m done
with Wine Club.