21 minute read
COMINGS AND GOINGS
Finding more trade in Morpeth
A relocation from one end of the high street to the other is proving to be a positive move so far for Grape & Grain in Morpeth, Northumberland.
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Owner Mark Stephenson reopened in the new premises at the end of June and has already attracted new customers.
Stephenson says: “There have been so many people who’ve come in over the past two weeks and when I tell them we were only down the bottom of the road, they say they’ve lived here for over 30 years but never realised we were there.
“We were right at the end and the shops around us were selling carpets and windows, so I knew we were missing out a lot on passing trade. This unit is opposite what will be a big hotel. It’s close to our market square and a shopping arcade.
“We’ve even picked up a few more corporate orders as people have driven past and spotted us.”
Grape & Grain was initially owned by Paddy Eyres and traded as Bin21 before Michelle McKenzie took over in 2018 and rebranded it.
Stephenson is an ex-train guard who started working for McKenzie shortly before the pandemic. He bought the business in December 2020 and has reinvigorated the offer.
“In two and a bit years, I’ve gone from a job that I really didn’t like to owning my own wine shop – it’s been incredible,” he says.
“I’ve changed about 80% of the range. I work with about a dozen suppliers including specialists such as Marta Vine for our Portuguese range, Condor for South America, Marcato Direct for Italian wines and Thorman Hunt for France.
“I feel they all really get under the skin of those regions. It’s great working with these
Mark Stephenson bought the shop in 2020
smaller suppliers and they’ve been very supportive as well.
“Every weekend I’ve got a couple of bottles open for people to try. Engagement with customers is very important.
“I’m really looking to get our monthly tastings restarted next month and I’ve booked Morpeth town hall for our big biannual tasting event in November. It will be our first one since 2019.
“Morpeth is really on the way up with lots of new restaurants and bars opening, and tourism has increased massively.”
Folkestone indie is a team effort
John Dory is a wine shop and tasting room on its way to Sandgate, near Folkestone in Kent.
It is being opened by Louisa Walls, who previously worked in the wine trade in Provence, and Zeren Wilson, a food writer and wine consultant who was once an account manager at Armit.
They have teamed up with local restaurateurs Sam and Andy Shorten from Space Bar & Kitchen in the town. “We were initially looking at the centre of Folkestone,” says Wilson, “and then this property came up.
“I’ve always loved Sandgate: it is Folkestone but it isn’t. It’s got its own vibe as a little village but you drive through it in 10 seconds.
“You can walk to Folkestone, so it’s got all the benefits of a pretty seaside village but still close to a vibrant town, which is absolutely popping at the moment – and it’s only going one way.”
Wilson had previously worked with the Shortens on the wine list for the restaurant.
“They recognised there was this growing interest in wine and there was an opportunity to do more wine-focused things and we decided to collaborate rather than doing things separately,” says Walls. “There was a really good energy and spark between us all.
Louisa Walls toasts the John Dory launch
“It’s a beautiful space, quite rustic but not in an over-the-top way. There’s some bare brickwork and concrete floors and a lovely area at the back of the shop, which has a very high conservatory-style roof. We’ll have some gorgeous plants and install a wood-burner for the winter.
“The space lends itself to having a tasting room at the back and a social area at the front and plenty of shelving. It won’t be all super-modern, new and shiny. It will have quite a cosy feel.”
Kwas closes as cost of living bites
Huddersfield indie Kwas has closed its shop and bar in the West Yorkshire town’s centre but is continuing with its wholesale business.
Co-owner Duncan Sime says rising business costs and the impact of the cost of living crisis on consumer spending have brought things to a head.
Sime and co-founder Ola Dabrowska expanded their natural wine, craft beer and cider offering during lockdown by adding groceries.
Late last year they then moved to bigger premises, next door to their original unit, to accommodate the growing business once the on-trade ramped up again, financing the move through a crowdfunder.
“The numbers weren’t stacking up, unfortunately,” says Sime. “People aren’t going out as much. Fridays and Saturdays have been good but the daytime trade needed to double or triple to be sustainable."
Right time to sell Cheshire business
Cheshire’s Whitmore & White has been sold by founders Joe Whittick and Jamie Godber-Ford Moore.
The new owners are Brian Spark and Chris Fletcher, who say they have been fans of the business since it first opened.
“For the last couple of years, Brian and I had been exploring different options,” says Fletcher, “from our own start-up to considering other existing business. The type of thing we wanted, if you look at the DNA of it, was very similar to Whitmore & White.”
Whittick and Moore launched the business in Heswall in 2014 and opened a second site in Frodsham a year later.
Whittick says: “Jamie has continued to run his other business as a specialist building contractor. He does restoration work on churches, castles and stained glass.
“I’m an ecologist and I’ve been working the whole time too. We do like to be ridiculously busy.
“But we’ve come to the point where we’ve realised we can’t give the business the attention it needs – we are just running to stay still.
“Chris and Brian have a lot of energy and ideas. It just feels right for the business and they will take it forward.”
Managers Katie Butler (Frodsham) and Graham Simpson (Heswall) will be staying with the company.
Bigger premises for Knutsford duo
Morgan Edwards in Knutsford, Cheshire, is relocating from its shop in the town’s Market Hall shop to larger premises nearby.
Co-owner Morgan Ward says: “The larger and more prominent location will enable us to offer an expanded range of wines as well as hosting tastings, offering valuations, and collaborations. The location will raise our profile and customer base.”
Setting the record straight
Apologies are due to Lloyd Beedell and his team at Chester’s in Abergavenny. In our July edition we described Winyl in Essex as the only shop in the UK specialising in both wine and LPs, forgetting that Chester’s has a small selection of vinyl on sale.
Lloyd can probably claim one unique honour, however, being the only independent merchant that we know of to have his company logo as a tattoo. Our photo of his ankle should prove the point.
Not funny, not clever
The cobwebby cellar at the José Maria da Fonseca estate on Portugal’s Setúbal peninsula dates back to 1775 and it’s an atmospheric place. As visitors tread softly through the gravel walkways, admiring the barrels and breathing in the musty aromas of evaporating Moscatel and dusty oak, the faint echoes of Gregorian chanting add an extra sense of reverence.
The music is really there for the tourists, our guide more or less admits. “But the vibrations maybe help the wine to age a little quicker.”
Spotting an opportunity for a clever wisecrack that will make him appear both perceptive and original, our editor suggests that heavy metal or hip-hop is played instead, thus speeding up the maturation process even more.
Our guide barely allows him to finish the sentence. “Everybody says that,” he interjects, turning on his heels to continue the tour.
American dream becomes a reality
Online US wine specialist Pacific Wines is opening a bricks-and-mortar retail site in north London.
The shop will open on Islington High Street on August 29 with a range of wines from California and Oregon.
Pacific Wines was started as an online business by former maths teacher Rachel Gilbert, and her father Graham Gilbert, nine months ago.
Rachel fell for the US states when the pair went on a road trip after she graduated 10 years ago.
Plans for a wine shop were hatched as long ago as 2019 before the pandemic got in the way.
The site will stock 150 wines and has an events space to the rear with a capacity of 30.
“We are the first UK retailer to focus exclusively on North American wines,” says Rachel. “Lockdown gave us the opportunity to set up Pacific Wines online and start to develop our range of wines, and living locally, I had my heart set on opening a store in Islington.
“When this store became available, I knew the time was right.”
Finley’s fitting-out relied on the help and good will of some talented friends
Rachel Gilbert: a former maths teacher with a love of west coast wines
Cocker branches out to Leeds
West Yorkshire indie Martinez Wines has plans to open a third store this autumn and owner Jonathan Cocker has his sights on premises in Leeds.
“I’ve been looking for about 10 years for the right property,” he says. “It had to be in the right location, the right sort of thing for Martinez – I like old-fashioned, characterful buildings.”
Cocker is in the final stages of securing a Grade II listed building in Thornton’s Arcade in Leeds city centre, a location famous for its animated Ivanhoe clock that depicts characters from Sir Walter Scott’s novel of the same name.
“The location is great,” Cocker says. “The ground floor has capacity for 30 and that will be walk-in only.
“We’ll take bookings for the first floor, which takes about 20 people and on the top floor we’ll have one big table with space for about a dozen people and use it for tastings and private hire.
“We’ll be doing a minimum of 40 wines by the glass, all matched with cheese. It will mainly be a wine bar with simple tapas. There will be a small retail element but our focus on this will be deliveries.
“On the menu we’ll have prices for bythe-glass, bottle-in, bottle-out and a case delivered to the local postcode area.
“We think that there’s still a market for home delivery and we’re trying to push that a little bit more. It’s everything Martinez is: small and friendly with quality wines.
“The idea is to entice, educate and encourage people to try something different.”
Martinez’s existing branches are in Bingley and Ilkley.
Real Drinks shuts Twickenham shop
Real Drinks has closed its original store in Twickenham and its ecommerce business with the loss of three full-time jobs. The London indie’s move follows the closure of its Notting Hill shop in January and leaves it with only a single hybrid branch, in Maida Vale.
The business was founded as Real Ale by Nick Dolan at the Twickenham site in 2005, as a specialist in bottle-conditioned beer.
An unusual revenue stream for the business saw it acting as a beer sourcing consultant for Marks & Spencer.
It was over a decade before Maida Vale (in 2017) and Notting Hill (2019) brought expansion of the Real Ale estate.
The company undertook a high profile
The store’s 2021 rebrand
rebranding in April 2021 as Real Drinks, to reflect an evolution in recent years to include more wine and spirits in its range.
At the time, the company’s Zeph King told The Wine Merchant that revenue was £9.5m annually with growth of 56% in the first quarter of 2021, versus the same period a year earlier.
The Twickenham store had what the company called a “significant refurbishment” with more drinking-in space as recently as May of this year.
“Making decisions like this are never easy,” said Dolan, announcing the closure by social media.
“We have been able to achieve many things and we have had a lot of fun along the way, mainly due to our dedicated and passionate team who have done so much more than just work here.
“The last few years has made us embrace change and consider how we grow as a business, which has led us to difficult decisions around our retail offering and ultimately the closing of Twickenham.”
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Portfolio tasting in association with Condor Wines: Celebrate the diversity of South America
Restaurant but also a wine shop
Specialist wine importer Beattie & Roberts has opened Cadet, a wine bar and shop in Newington Green, north London.
Tom Beattie and Francis Roberts have teamed up with George Jephson, who runs a charcuterie business, and chef Jamie Smart for the venture.
Beattie says: “We work with 25 winemakers across France, Germany and Italy and Iambic beer producers in Belgium.
“Initially we’re only going to be working with our imports but down the track we might open it out.
“For the past four years that we’ve been importing, we have held on to some back vintages with this project in mind, so we are really looking forward to showcasing those.”
Beattie says Cadet will be “predominantly” on-trade but that retail will be an important element.
“To open just a straight restaurant seems like a risk,” he says, “so to be able to do that multi-offering – you can eat in, no reservations, or just buy some charcuterie and a bottle of wine to take away – abides by that caves à manger style that you see in France.
“There’ll be a small shelf near the entrance with all the wine on display and everything that needs to be refrigerated to take away, will be.”
• The Vine Shop in Five Valleys Shopping Centre in Stroud, Gloucestershire, closed last month after just nine months of trading. Sommelier David Almeida, who owned the business, posted on social media: “I’d like to say a big thank you to all the people that supported the business. I’ve met great people and I will miss you all.”
Chef Jamie Smart. Pic by Joe Woodhouse
Wine bar will be a bonus for Bruce
A devalued pound
In the How Much is Brexit Costing? article in the July edition, Yannick Loué states “the exchange rate is a lot better now than preBrexit. We were near enough to €1.10 to the pound in those days”.
This is factually incorrect. The pound was above €1.30 for many years before Brexit and even reached above €1.40. Paul Chambers Lake District Drinks Co Greenodd
Feline groovy
Fantastic. Finally another cover page Cat of the Month! A great improvement. Will Bentley Bentley’s Wine Merchants of Ludlow
Devon’s Grape & Grain is opening a standalone wine bar at 133 High Street in Crediton, a few doors away from the existing wine shop.
The bar will be housed in an old bank and the name is expected to be Grape & Grain @133.
“I’ve taken a long-term lease with an option to buy,” says owner Bruce Evans. “It’s not a new concept: it’s a wine and cocktail bar with a little bit of continental beer.
“But it’s new for Crediton. The town has eight pubs but this gives people a new option. Crediton needs something like this.”
Evans is unperturbed by the gathering economic crisis.
“It’s good to open when it’s like this because you’ll naturally do it in a lean way, and it will hopefully be better set up for when things improve,” he says.
The aim is to open in late October. “There’s a lot of work to do,” he adds. “If it doesn’t open then, it will be February, because there’s no way I’m opening in November, December or January.” THE WINE MERCHANT august 2022 9
Too many Vineyards
I was reading the July issue of The Wine Merchant, with much pleasure as always.
This issue was particularly thrilling as we were, for the first time I believe, mentioned in an article: Steve’s Found His Groove [a profile of Winyl in Manningtree, Essex].
Unfortunately it must have been a misprint as I don’t think I’ve ever met Steve Tattam; we haven’t done SITT in at least seven or eight years; and we don’t do French wines. I can only assume it was meant to be From Vineyards Direct. Oh well, I’ll take my 10 seconds of fame wherever it’s coming from! Dario Langella Vineyards Direct Enfield, north London
Editor’s note: We went back to Steve and he tells us he actually meant to namecheck Vineyard Productions.
Correspondence is welcome. Email graham@winemerchantmag.com
Rising Stars
From a career in banking to working the vineyards in France, via some serious exploration of wine regions in New Zealand, James Riley has now found his happy place at Highbury Vintners.
“We have a trainee programme where we train everybody up in all areas of the business so that everyone can do everything,” explains manager Tom Hemmingway. “More often than not, they carve out a niche for themselves, just as James has. He’s been with us for about nine months and we accelerated him along because we saw very quickly that his skill set and attention to detail makes him very well suited to his role.”
James coordinates all the in-store tastings as well as running the store’s social media. “We do everything from packing up orders for shipping out to buying wines and serving customers,” he says.
James had worked at HSBC, and lived in Hong Kong for a year, before joining Lloyds and then leaving banking in 2018 and travelling to his partner’s native New Zealand.
By the time lockdown hit, James had spent time in Rioja, Ribera del Duero and Rías Baixas, worked a harvest in the south of France, completed his WSET Level 3 and was in the process of buying a property in France.
“We bought a little winemaker’s house to renovate to give us something to do and provide us with a base to explore in between the various lockdowns and curfews,” he says. “It was a really informative and educational year. It’s such a nice world; you meet really interesting people. People who work in wine mostly do it because they are passionate. Nobody does it to get rich and that’s a refreshing thing.”
Tom describes James as having “really immersed
James Riley
Highbury Vintners, London
himself in the London wine scene”. So after all that travelling, why London, and why retail?
James explains: “When we were in France, we did think ‘do we want to make wine?’ although we’d enjoyed being part of the winemaking process for other people, it wasn’t for us. We both love living in London so it made sense to come back and work in the wine business here.
“I really believe that wine should be accessible, and Highbury Vintners is great because we’re a community wine shop in the heart of Highbury and we have a lot of regular customers who have known Tom for a decade or more. It’s an exciting time for the business and I’m getting more involved and want to continue to be part of our growth.
James wins a bottle of Glenfarclas 12 Year Old Single Highland Malt If you’d like to nominate a Rising Star, email claire@winemerchantmag.com
Connolly’s pins hopes on hybrids
Solihull shop is sold to its manager and the hunt is on for sites where on and off-sales can combine
Connolly’s has consolidated all its activities to its bar and shop in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter after selling off its Solihull store to its manager.
The move, which comes a couple of years after the business sold its wholesale operation to Frazier’s, frees up the business to focus on its hybrid operation and to look for new sites where its Arch 13 concept could be replicated.
The Solihull branch, in Dovehouse Parade, has been taken on by Mark Stammers and will now trade under the Vine & Bine banner.
Chris Connolly says there was an option to extend the lease but due to his “advancing years” (he is 62) he was reluctant to make any further commitment to the shop.
“We took on the premises just over 10 years ago,” he says. “The lease came to an end and the landlords were prepared to be flexible but they wanted some degree of certainty from us.
“It’s based in a 1930s shopping parade – it’s a very strong location. We converted the first and second floors into a tasting room and offices and in the tasting room you can seat 20 people comfortably.
“It’s gone to someone who’s been working with us for 22 years and he’s taken on a couple of staff who were working with us, so we’ve had no redundancies. The whole thing has been done in a very amicable way.
“It was working well, it was ticking over and we had a great team in there. But actually if you’re driving it yourself as an owner-manager then it’s quite a different ball game, I think.
“It gives us a bit more time and a better work/life balance and a chance to take time off without worrying about what’s going on back at the farm, so to speak.”
Connolly’s daughter Abi runs the Arch 13 bar in a railway arch in Henrietta Street, a corner of which is sectioned off as the Connolly’s shop.
“Arch 13 is working well but Abi really isn’t interested in stand-alone retail. She’s much more interested in the hybrid model and she’s got some quite exciting plans to develop that and roll that out,” he says.
“We are actively looking for somewhere. The last two or three years have been difficult for everyone, and they continue to be difficult, but it’s working as well as it was before lockdown.”
Above: Chris and Abi Connolly Below: The Solihull branch
Connolly’s started out in 1976, when Birmingham’s wine scene was nothing like as sophisticated as it is today. Loki provides some friendly rivalry, and more recently there has been a series of wine bar openings, and Midlands debuts for Vagabond and Vinoteca, both making their first forays outside of London.
“Birmingham is a big enough city to cope with that kind of competition,” says Connolly. “I think what we do is really quite different. We don’t get involved with Enomatic machines and this sort of thing. It’s much more service-driven and staff engage with customers; they chat to them and they give them a little taste of something if they’re not quite sure what they want.
“The cheese and meat side of things that we do is very important. Presentation is really strong and the quality is really high. It’s not just a little bit of something to soak up the alcohol.
“I like to think it’s the best cheeseboard you’ll find in Birmingham. We’ve had some fantastic TripAdvisor reviews recently. The food side of things is as important as the wine side although we are not a restaurant and we don’t have a full-on kitchen.”
Does Connolly feel that Birmingham is in any way insulated from the current woes facing so much of UK hospitality?
“The bar side of things is growing at the moment so I can’t say we are feeling the pinch. Obviously costs are going up, which makes things more difficult.
“I think Birmingham as a city is growing generally at the moment. The demographic is very mixed and very young and there is a buzz around the city. Fingers crossed from our point of view it’s going all right.”
