COMINGS AND GOINGS

Michelin-star list for indie start-up

The Wine Rooms Cambridge opened at the beginning of June on Hills Road.

General manager John Jaswilowicz, who has spent almost 20 years in the wine trade, starting at Oddbins before stints at Planet of The Grapes and Vagabond, says his new role is a perfect fit for him.

Following a two-year break in Brazil with his partner, Jasilowicz relocated from London to Cambridge after the couple realised the capital was no longer for them.

“I was a sommelier at Hotel du Vin before I met Marcus [Edwards], who has a fine wine broking business called Albany Vintners,” explains Jasilowicz.

“He said he was setting up a wine shop/ bar/restaurant with a relaxed vibe but high quality stuff. I thought that was right up my street and so it all fell into place.”

The Wine Rooms Cambridge has two floors and accommodates 50 covers. The wine list reflects the food focus: “small menu, high quality, seasonal and changing regularly”.

Wine Rooms Cambridge has 50 covers spread over two floors

Jasilowicz says they were lucky enough to get the opening range of wines from a Michelin-starred restaurant that was selling off its cellar.

“We want to be unique in terms of our offering,” he says, “and it just meant we could have our shelves looking very different to everyone else. We opened with really nice old vintages of things – things you just can’t get your hands on these days.”

Moving forward the business will be supplied by Albany Vintners. “We can just pick great things and put them on straight away with no cumbersome machinations to work through,” says Jasilowicz.

• Jesmond could soon have a specialist independent wine shop again. The Jesmond Wine Company, a local wholesale business, has applied for a licence to sell “premium and artisan wine and spirits” from a unit in Clayton Road in the Newcastle upon Tyne suburb. Richard Granger’s wine shop in the West Jesmond Metro station closed in 2020 after five decades of trading.

Second site for Shop Cuvée

Following the success of Shop Cuvée in Highbury, north London, Brodie Meah and Max Venning will open a second site in Bethnal Green this month.

The pair founded Shop Cuvée last summer when their respective hospitality businesses had to close due to lockdown.

The Bethnal Green store will have provision for a wine bar and events space in the basement, while the ground floor will be dedicated to retail.

Meah (pictured) says: “We never assumed retail would be our main focus but we never forget our roots in hospitality. Wine and food just go hand in hand.”

“We already distribute all over the UK,” adds Meah, “but what this shop really means for us is that we can take ownership of that delivery a bit more. We are very keen on using our own bicycle couriers; they are freelance workers but very much part of our team. At the moment we have a 6km radius around the Highbury store, and Bethnal Green means we can extend our bicycle courier radius.

“That service is really important to us because the delivery is door to door, in our own hands, rather than handing it off to a courier.”

He adds: “We’re not eco-warriors but I think any good business these days has an eye on its environmental impact, so we see it as a bit of a no-brainer really, especially in London. I do some bike deliveries sometimes and I’m surprised that it’s not more popular.”

Meah says that the business has the capacity to start importing direct, but would rather wait until the current Brexit/ Covid/transport storms blow over. “We are super busy focusing on our retail, so I think it’s sensible to hold off on importing for now,” he adds.

Batch team go back to basics

A craft beer shop in Warrington Market closed in July after just four months.

Owners Will Brown and Chris Bardsley continue to operate Batch Bottlestore in Altrincham, established in 2019.

A statement on social media read: “We aren’t too proud to admit when something isn’t working for us. Sure, it’s a bit of a kicker but we’ll chalk it down to some lessons learnt. We’ll regroup and concentrate our energy in Altrincham for the time being. Big thanks to everyone who shopped with us.”

Pub group finds permanent shop

Vino Gusto is soon to open a new site in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

Owned by Gusto Pronto, a business comprising five pubs and a craft brewery, Vino Gusto set up temporarily during lockdown last summer in The One Bull, one of the company’s pubs.

Now the on-trade is fully operational once more, Gusto Pronto wants to grow its retail arm, which has proved a success under the stewardship of Jake Bennett-Day. Bennett-Day confirmed that the company has secured the freehold of a building in the town in a high street location.

“Our expectation is that we’ll open in October or November,” he says. “There’s a bit of work to do to the building. It’s in good shape, but we’re opening up the lovely cellar to the public and creating a tasting/training facility on the first floor.”

THE WINE MERCHANT august 2021 5

Trade calls out Hoggwash

The scrapping of VI-1 forms has put the UK wine trade in its cheeriest mood for some time. But the goodwill does not extend to allowing Jacob-Rees Mogg to proclaim the decision as “another benefit of Brexit”, resulting in “cheaper wine and less red tape”.

The House of Commons leader was forcefully put in his place following his vainglorious tweet, which linked to a Telegraph article about VI-1s. This piece seemed to split wine professionals into two camps: those who thought it was dreadful, and those who thought it was drivel.

Matt Wilkin of H2Vin, Daniel Lambert, Miles Beale of the WSTA and writer Giles MacDonogh were among the trade names to pop up in Rees-Mogg’s timeline, each pointing out, using a variety of idioms and metaphors, that the Rt Hon gentleman’s assessment of the VI-1 situation was misleading and disingenuous.

Perhaps the most succinct and articulate response was offered by Shaftesbury Wines. “Not introducing something that makes wine more expensive is not the same as making it cheaper,” wrote owner David Perry. “Saying it is a benefit is like saying you saved a drowning man by taking your foot off his head. But thank God you finally listened to sense from the UK wine trade.”

Alex gives a shuck

There was intriguing update on the Park Vintners blog in late July in which co-owner Alex Roberts announced a holiday, “following a cry for help from the organisers of the Tokyo Olympics”.

“Myself and a crack team of shuckers are being paid just over $1m to save the canoeing and rowing in Tokyo Bay. Our job is to remove all the oysters that have attached themselves to the floats positioned to protect the racing area from waves. So many oysters have attached themselves that the floats are starting to sink. So I’ve packed Muscadet and Chablis, a bit of Albariño, but I just need someone to help me carry the barrel of Guinness – any volunteers?”

Hector’s hopes to fit in naturally

Hector’s has now fully opened in De Beauvoir, a residential neighbourhood that “fits snugly between Hackney and Islington,” according to owner Jimmy Stephenson.

He initially planned to open the bottle shop and the accompanying bar at the same time. But when the lifting of hospitality restrictions was delayed by a month, he went ahead with the shop launch in June and the bar element followed a few weeks later.

Stephenson, previously at upmarket Hackney butcher and restaurant Hill & Szrok, launched Hector’s with the backing Hill & Szrok’s owner Luca Mathiszig-Lee. He’ll be operating the business with the help of his wife Anna and her younger brother Josh, who is currently studying for his WSET Level 2.

“The industry is really struggling at the moment for staff,” reports Stephenson. “At Hill & Szrok we put people through the apprenticeship scheme. If you can find youngish people who are happy to learn, it’s a great way to employ and train people.

“Hopefully they stick it out and really enjoy it. The majority of them really go for it. I want to do a similar thing here with Josh, but with wine, and hopefully he will fall in love with it.”

Stephenson is working with suppliers including Vine Trail, Passione e Vino and Tuto. He says: “My style of wine is definitely influenced by a lot of natural and low-intervention winemaking but not dogmatically so. There’s definitely some more conventional and traditional stuff in there.”

Customers can choose any wine from the shelves to take away or drink in. Pic: Charlie McKay

The shop opened with the previous signage still intact. Pic: Charlie McKay

Customers will be able to choose anything from the shelves to drink in or take away but there will also be a wine list. “It’s really nice to be able to talk through every single bottle that we have in the shop but that can be time consuming and overwhelming, so we do have a wine list for people to choose from when drinking in,” explains Stephenson.

“It’s nice to give people a list as a starting point, too, so they can see the prices and maybe pick out an appellation they know and we can take it from there. If they want to push it further and ask if we’ve got anything special open, that’s great. We want to make this place really special and for it to be part of the community for a long time to come.”

Leading suppliers 2021

In our Wine Merchant Top 100 supplement, published with our July edition, there was a mistake in the leaderboard of the competition’s most successful suppliers of 2021.

The corrected version appears here, including, in eighth spot, Daniel Lambert Wines, which we inadvertently omitted from the original graphic.

Apologies to Daniel and his team and congratulations again to all suppliers who came away victorious in a recordbreaking year for entries.

Methodology Three points were awarded for a Top 100 spot, and one point for each Highly Commended placing.

NOT YOU AGAIN! customers we could do without 26. Vince Chisholm

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