30 minute read
round table
Tower Summit 2022
Seven independent merchants were summoned to the Tower of London last month for a round table discussion on a variety of issues of importance to the UK wine trade.
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Our coverage kicks off with a coversation surrounding the economic outlook and how indies are already being affected by the cost-of-living crisis.
More reports from the debate will appear in our November edition.
The Tower Summit is organised in association with Hatch Mansfield.
Nish Patel, Shenfield Wine Co
January was very good. It was February and March that were concerning. We probably lost a bit of footfall.
Although we are in an affluent town, there is definite concern and people are nervous. But when you look at the numbers, our average basket sale has actually gone up a bit. Footfall has dropped a little. I looked at it again this weekend and it’s pretty stable.
Prices have gone up because inflation has gone up, but we’ve tried to hold as much them as we can and we’ve worked hard with our suppliers to get good deals.
I think we are quite resilient to a certain degree. I’ve looked at our entry level and I’m making sure we have a wider selection. There is a percentage of our customers who are looking for more of a bargain.
Robin Eadon, Dulwich Vintners
There are certainly some customers who have been regulars for years and have changed their price point – there’s a certain product they’d always go for but they’ve dropped to the one below.
An example would be a crémant at £16. A few people who would ordinarily take that have gone down to the Cava at £11. That’s in Dulwich, which is historically quite recession-proof.
Like Nish, we’ve seen a slight reduction in footfall but the average spend has stayed pretty constant. For us, we’ve seen that you just cannot predict what’s going to happen. So you could have a poor Saturday for some reason and a very good Wednesday for no reason at all. It’s really unpredictable.
The problem we’ve faced with the rising costs is trying to replace things at the bottom end. Lots of people are quite accepting that prices will go up because we’ve seen it across the board in every single market.
Where we were able to get something in at £8 or £9, that’s suddenly £10 or £11. That’s our entry level. The difficulty of importing is that you can’t do small shipments at the bottom end any more.
Freddie Cobb, Vagabond Wines
We’re obviously a bit more hybrid than most but I would concur with what has been said about the unpredictability. You can have a quiet Saturday but an absolutely booming Tuesday for no reason whatsoever. So managing stock levels for that can be challenging at times.
Round about July we suddenly saw our guests starting to go for more entry-level wines than they ordinarily would have done.
At Vagabond we wanted to come up with a plan at the beginning of this year to minimise costs across the supply chain and be quite imaginative in doing so. As a result we’ve been able to keep our prices relatively stable. You can definitely see in July and August, customers are going for things that are a little bit friendlier on their wallets.
Graham Holter, The Wine Merchant
When the cost-of-living crisis does bite, is that going to play out even more?
Freddie Cobb, Vagabond Wines
Yes and no. People will always want to drink wine but a lot of our customers are aged 20 to 35 and they are probably feeling it a bit more than most. When they go out we think they will be looking for a meaningful experience. We think their spend on the evening will go up, but they will go out less.
I think we’ll probably hold less stock because my average spend stays the same, but I’m selling fewer units. People are looking to buy better or not buy at all. I feel that I’ve lost a lot of customers who buy at that lower price point, and I don’t do offers because I feel it devalues the product.
I think the people who buy at the middle price band are not so worried about the rising cost of living compared to the people who have upgraded from the supermarket to buy our entry-level wines. The customers buying £15 to £25 bottles or a case every week … I don’t think it’s going to affect their habits so much.
Sam Howard, HarperWells, Norwich
We start at £9.99 and there’s a couple around the edge at £8.99 that we use for our trade customers. We don’t sell to hotels and traditional trade – our trade customers are concessions or wedding venues.
In terms of retail, we have seen the Tuesday spike, and we’ve put that down to people working from home. We are 90 minutes from London and we have people who have changed their working patterns. The Saturday moving to a Tuesday is just because of that.
Our neighbouring shops are really struggling. They are opening more erratic hours and you can see their stock levels in their displays are way down. One of our little delis is in a small market town of about 9,000 people. If it becomes an unattractive place for people to wander around then that is a problem for us. Even
Mitch Swift, The Bottleneck, Broadstairs
I am more at risk of losing those customers who shop at our lowest price points of £7.50 to £10 because, as I have to increase those prices, that customer will just go to the supermarket instead.
Some customers have said to me that they only shop from me for special occasions now. You accept that you lose their custom, but at the same time you have that issue of getting the lower-end price point of wine in. Do you open yourself up to getting one or two pallets of something, knowing you are going to make a high margin, or do you swallow the margin and stock the wine? though our sales are up 20% on last year and are really strong, I do worry if the town struggles.
The sourdough in the deli was £4, then £4.50; it will be £5 by Christmas, and at some point customers are going to say they’ll go to Waitrose. Those bread customers also buy a bottle of wine from us, so if they stop coming in that is a concern on a small scale for us.
Conor Nolan, The Secret Cellar, Kent
I’ve worked Saturdays and they can be really quiet – and then midweek can be mad. And then the Saturdays in August, when I thought everyone would be away, were bumper Saturdays. You just can’t predict it.
A £2.5k energy cap is still a large amount of money for anybody to pay and I think, come October 1, people are going to go, “woah, what’s going on?”. If you look at the fuel prices and everything else going on in the world, you can’t look at your crystal ball and say it’s going to be a good Christmas. We don’t know what it will look like. Will they buy in advance? We bought Whispering Angel for the Jubilee but Waitrose were discounting the hell out of it. But the people who came in for it paid full price for it and didn’t care.
Our four shops have very different demographics. Tunbridge Wells has no parking and there are a lot of people working from home, so we do a lot of deliveries, and they want volume. Oxted is next to the station and we get a lot of
Tuesday to Thursday trade; you don’t see so much on Monday and Friday. At Wadhurst we have parking, so people come in their cars and bulk buy. We get people who we’ve never seen before, who are just passing through, and they drop a grand on high-end wine. Then you get the regular people who come in. It’s a very mixed business.
Graham Holter, The Wine Merchant
As a supplier, how is Hatch Mansfield making sense of the current economic climate?
James Manson, Hatch Mansfield
Historically we’ve always done things fairly counter-intuitively. In the global financial crisis wine importers were letting people go and we employed more people because we saw it as an opportunity to go out and try to win some market share.
We are fully aware there are challenges coming for the indie sector and we want to work with our customers, listen to them and do things that will add value and help.
When lockdown hit we took the decision to reduce our minimum order to £250 from £500. Actually, in hindsight, we didn’t need to do it because everyone’s minimum orders went up because as we all know retail sales increased significantly.
We’ve kept it in place, though, because as Mitch says, managing cash flow is really important. Our view is if we’re not holding stock or helping with things like that, then what are we here to do? We need add value in the supply chain and we want you to work with us.
We tend to start at about £8; there are some wines that are a bit lower. We had a lot of people ask if our prices were going up in September. They didn’t. We aspire to have one price list once a year. It would have to be something catastrophic to change that.
We’re not just selling to indies. We are not small, so we can absorb certain things. We print a price list and send it out to all our customers. It’s expensive to reprint all your prices and then start having those difficult conversations. That’s time spent on doing things that ultimately aren’t that constructive.
Graham Holter, The Wine Merchant
The accepted wisdom is that specialist wine shops tend to do OK in an economic downturn, especially as people spend less on eating out but want nice wines to drink at home. Is that the way things are likely to pan out this time?
Sam Howard, HarperWells, Norwich
In the last recession I was dealing with private clients. I was young and it was an unnerving time for me but people swapped into buying ultra-premium wines, and high net worth individuals did lay cases down and did come out of it fine.
This time round I don’t see it being fundamentally any different with those kinds of customers. But if we look at our own energy costs, if they double and we can’t re-negotiate a better deal across two shops – and people with more shops and multiple fridges etc have done their own maths – that is a problem, because that’s just bottles going out of the shop for free.
Freddie Cobb, Vagabond Wines
We’ve got machines, fridges, lights, music … whatever it might be, in all our stores. The last thing we want to do is be in the position where we are having to decide whether to keep that fridge on or let that part-timer go, or vice versa.
We all know that the teams within each store are just as important as the wines themselves. We are just having to put pressure on the government wherever we possibly can and try to get help from elsewhere like VAT cuts, duty rates, things like that. We need help.
Robin Eadon, Dulwich Vintners
We upped our stock levels a bit ahead of Brexit and were bringing in stuff from Europe because of the uncertainty and that stayed in place during Covid. We do always run at quite a high stock level, which does mean we can insulate ourselves slightly against those things. But the biggest cost for us is always rent and wages.
You have to make the decision whether to pack the store with part-time staff who possibly aren’t able to reflect your proposition perfectly, or do you trim your team down and run with really good people who represent you well? Then you have to look at all sorts of things like
trimming down hours, or opening on different days just to try and manage it.
The rising cost of living also means that job seekers are looking for a higher wage.
Since the last economic downturn, I think the people who are drinking wine have changed. You do get that 20 to 30-year-old age bracket who never would have gone to their independent to buy something fun or different. We have people drinking fine wine out of plastic cups in the park. I don’t know whether those people are going to change the way they think about those costs or not.
We’re not really concentrating too much on trimming down. We are more interested in trying to push the things that we’re good at: trying to get more people drinking wine and trying to up their average spend.
Mitch Swift, The Bottleneck, Broadstairs
That younger category is so used to spending so much money on a night out, that one bottle of wine at £15 to £25 is less than a night out. They go to a pub and buy Pinot Grigio at £8 a glass.
I think this younger demographic is a really good group that has moved on to buying wine because they want to learn. They are open to talk to us and experiment and try things.
Nish Patel, Shenfield Wine Co
I agree with Robin. Covid has been an amazing two years for the independent wine industry. I opened a year before the financial crash and we grew throughout the whole 10 years. Our demographic is very different to what it was. Over the last two years we’ve seen a lot more younger
people, 20 to 30-year-olds, coming in. They are not necessarily that well-educated but they are open to spending serious money on wine because they want a journey.
James Manson, Hatch Mansfield
Those younger people who are coming in spending the money haven’t yet gone through a financial crisis, so maybe come October I think there could be a bit of a wake-up call.
I think there’s a big unknown round how this cost-of-living crisis directly impacts wine production. So whether you are looking at the increasing costs from yields going down due to climate issues, or the cost of glass and packaging … up until February glass was still going up in price, then all of a sudden the crisis in Ukraine happens and the price of glass goes through the roof. Then fuel costs are directly impacting the drinks business as a whole.
Sam Howard, HarperWells, Norwich
That’s exactly my point. In the financial crisis you could take that philosophy and you could say, ‘I need 50 grand’s worth of sales’ and you could go out and practically do it, but this time you can’t do it because the supply chain is so broken.
Tower Summit 2022
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
We had a two-pallet order of Prosecco going in and out to a private school for its summer event and the price was negotiated, there was no backing out from it. The order was placed eight or 12 weeks
in advance and confirmed, but they ran out of glass. The big supplier helped us out and shifted about and found UK stock for us, pulling it off other accounts. But we had to meet them in the middle, at 50p a bottle.
Conor Nolan, The Secret Cellar, Kent
We’re looking at Christmas now and asking are we going to buy direct from producers or UK suppliers, and the answer is all UK supply – the simple reason being that we don’t have to commit to pallets and pallets of something, and that keeps your cash flow going.
Let’s talk about colour
The days of wine being simple to pigeonhole as red, white or perhaps pink are long gone. The lines are blurring all the time, and that’s something we should embrace, argues David Williams
We wine people love to talk up the sophistication of our favoured product. We can go on for hours, weeks – careers – about the endless complexities and variables of its production methods, origins, ingredients, and the artisans or artists who interpret them.
And yet, when it comes down to the daily nitty-gritty of selling wine, we still rely on the most basic categories imaginable: more than country, region, grape variety or sweetness, the most important factor in dictating where a wine appears in a shop or a wine list, and in defining when and who will pick it up and buy it, is colour.
We all know people (or have customers) who define themselves by colour: the red-wine drinker who will only ever be talked into a glass of white once the temperature’s officially exceeded 35°C, and even then would probably rather switch to beer. Or the white-wine-only people who find red “too dry” or have read something somewhere about tannin and hangovers. And fair enough, I can see why the rigid, binary categories are useful for them.
Increasingly, however, I’m finding the habit of prioritising colour as a shorthand for wine style to be somewhat limiting when it comes to understanding, navigating and enjoying wine as it’s actually made today. There are too many wines that don’t fit in the boxes they’re given; too many in which the colour is actually a pretty poor guide to the structure, weight, texture and flavours you can expect once you start drinking them.
The engine for this train of thought was set in motion during a recent visit to Alsace. As with their peers in other areas of the world with a high concentration of smaller and, for want of a better word, artisanal producers, the winegrowers of Alsace have been playing around with the maceration times of their white wines. This has led to some really intriguing creations that sit on varying points on the spectrum that these days is now generally labelled “orange”.
Some producers were happy to use the term; some were in fact consciously making a wine to fit the “orange” category in response to demand from their customers. Others, however, notably natural wine-scene favourite Jean-Pierre Frick, rather chafed at the description. While the three enticing burnished ambergold wines Frick showed me over dinner would most definitely fit on the orange spectrum (and are indeed sold as such by importer Les Caves de Pyrene and other retailers), Frick himself preferred to stick to the term “macerated”.
There was a similar reticence at another of the region’s star producers, Josmeyer, which makes a wine from very old-vine Pinot Gris with a week-long maceration that, thanks to the colour in the grapes’ skins, has a lovely pink hue and flavours – fresh strawberries, gentle peppery spice – that might tempt some retailers to put it in the rosé section, or, given the subtle tannic squeeze, the red, but which could also, given its varietal composition, be sold as a white (and indeed, a quick consultation
Céline and Isabelle Meyer of Josmeyer
online tells me that is exactly how many retailers categorise it).
Confused? Well, the boundaryhopping only continued as the week progressed. There were Pinot Noir wines by the likes of Léon Boesch and Domaine Bohn so gently infused and pale in the glass that, while undoubtedly qualifying as red wines, could easily be placed on the darker (Tavel-like) end of rosé. Some of Zind-Humbrecht’s intensely powerful and resonant Grand Cru Gewürztraminers, while exhibiting classic gold-white wine colour, had a tannic pull that, tasted blindfold, could very easily have you expecting an orange or very light red.
Of course, Alsace is only a microcosm: this colour-fluid, pigment-bending trend has been happening all over the world over the past couple of decades, challenging the traditional rigid, binary categories, inspiring all kind of experimentation and leading to some of the most exciting winemaking – and wines – around. Tasting at the Dirty Dozen in London in September, I was struck by how many of the wines on offer from the 12 importers, no matter how they were labelled in the catalogue, seemed to fit into the centre of a Venn diagram where all the colours – red, white, rosé, orange and amber – meet.
Indeed, it’s the predominance of these wines – the lightly “infused” reds, the macerated whites, the textural rosés – at what might be called the cutting edge of wine that is the most significant legacy of all the Sturm und Drang of the natural wine revolution.
Does that mean the end of wine’s colour obsession? Quite the opposite. It’s time we started celebrating colour as we do flavour in all its multifaceted, confusing and sometimes-contradictory glory.
ANDREW WILSON
Outside the box Couriers sense big business with drinks deliveries. So why all the secrecy?
Over the years, we’ve tried to establish which couriers take bottles and liquids and what, if any, information they provide on the minimum level of packaging required. It has almost always proven trickier than you might think.
No courier wants to be the first to openly advertise that they carry bottles and liquids. It’s very much down to individual sales personnel and depots to agree with their customers. But things are finally starting to change. The boom in internet sales of drinks over the last few years has opened the couriers’ eyes to a large and profitable market ripe for the picking.
We recently made some minor tweaks to the design of our six- and 12-bottle transit packs that had already been approved by a well-known courier, which meant going through the whole approval process again, despite the fact that hundreds of the packs were going through their network each day with minimal issues.
I thought I’d share our recent experience of getting our transit packaging approved. It might offer some insight into what’s involved and what couriers are doing to support the wine trade.
It’s interesting for anyone who sends wines regularly to know that one- to threebottles and magnum packs are not a major concern for couriers, as long as they’re sensibly packed in strong double-wall outers and the bottles are separated.
Four-, six- and 12-bottle packs are a different matter completely. Ours were required to pass an initial “drop test”, which involves being dropped from a height of one metre, five times – on the base, on a long side, on a short side, the bottom corner and on the top corner. This was followed by a “trip test”, which simulates being carried at a one-metre height and then the carrier tripping and the box being thrown two metres forwards, with a requirement for the box to roll over several times in the process. It’s worth saying that this test is far harsher than the ISTA (international standards) drop tests (80cm dropped twice, with a shake test to simulate travelling in a van).
You have to ask why you would send your valuable drinks products with a courier that thought this might happen to your parcel in transit in the first place. While I can see the point of testing for a worst-case scenario, we would not expect a case of wine to be accidentally dropped more than once in transit, and pretty much the whole of our range would pass this test.
Once the initial drop test is passed, it’s monitored for around 400 to 500 consignments through the courier’s network before being given final approval. Once approved, it still doesn’t mean your bottles are insured; standard information on insurance is still very much a grey area. As we understand it, it’s down to the individual contract with your local depot and is generally a cost on top.
The good news for the wine industry, and for us as a packaging supplier, is that finally our packs for one, two, three, four, five and six bottles, as well as magnum shipping boxes, are courier approved, with our popular 12-bottle version still being worked on. Other couriers we’ve spoken to seem more relaxed … but unwilling to allow us to market to our customers that our packaging is approved.
I’ll never completely understand why there’s so much secrecy surrounding how best to send wine and with whom, but here’s a little insider tip. While we are not in a position to openly promote any courier’s packaging approval agreement specifically, talk to APC and Parcelforce before some other couriers. They seem the most helpful – and are not expecting to drop your parcel six times in transit.
The initial test involves the box being dropped from a height of one metre, five times, followed by a trip test, rolling over several times
Reggio Emilia Andrew Wilson is chairman of WBC
THE WINEMAKER FILES // José Tejedor
Chief Winemaker Bodegas Cosme Palacio, Laguardia, Rioja
I always wanted to be back in the
country I was born. I am from Rioja, with family from Zamora and Navarra. After years working at wineries all over the world, I feel fortunate to be back in such a special area, a world reference for quality wine and with such a fantastic quality of life.
Working for a family with such a long winemaking tradition and sharing its values is a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity. Being part of a historic winery founded in the 19th century is an honour and a great responsibility. And working under the leadership of Almudena Alberca MW is a dream come true.
Cosme Palacio is and has been an innovative winery since the outset.
Innovation and overcoming challenges is part of our DNA. We have modern facilities that allow us to express the terroir through the wine and guarantee maximum control of the entire production process and, therefore, excellent quality. Cosme Palacio wines are a unique example of harmony, balance and expressiveness, thanks to a series of pioneering decisions that were made in the early 1980s, such as the exhaustive selection of grapes, the separate vinification of each vineyard, ageing in the best French oak barrels and extended maceration. They are elegant wines, adapted to the present times.
We believe that Laguardia is a unique place to grow Tempranillo and Viura
because of its terroir, with its chalky bedrock and its cooler microclimate giving greater freshness and elegance to the wines, coupled with the long history of its people in vine growing. The Cosme Palacio range has always been ahead of its time in being made from grapes solely from this area, rather than blended across Rioja, and the new village category of Vino de Laguardia allows us to highlight the fact that the wines reflect the distinctive soul of this incredible place.
This is one of the earliest harvests
in Rioja. We have to be very careful to monitor the ripeness and the level of tannins. This year has been one of the warmest in Rioja’s history but the vines have survived incredibly well, bearing in mind that all the vines that supply grapes for the Cosme Palacio range are over 30 years of age, with some very old parcels going into the 1894 wines, so they are better placed to cope with drought than younger vines. It is going to be a challenging harvest but we are used to giving the best of ourselves to get the best from the grapes.
Working in a sustainable way in the vineyard and managing our resources in
a responsible way is essential. And that same philosophy continues throughout the winemaking process, with the entire team working to ensure the winery remains an icon of Rioja across the world.
We are at a very exciting stage in the
development of the winery. Guided by one of our strategic pillars of the company, which is excellence in the production of prestigious wines, we have implemented
The winery is named after its revolutionary founder, Don Cosme Palacio, who established it in Rioja Alavesa in 1894, creating one of the region’s most innovative and modernising forces.
This year, José took over as chief winemaker following a career that has taken him to France and Chile, reporting to winemaking director Almudena Alberca MW.
Wines imported by North South Wines
several significant changes in the winery. We have revived a very personal style of the winery and launched Cosme Palacio Blanco Reserva – first vintage 2018 – a few months ago, a new wine that reinforces the winery’s commitment to the great white wines of Rioja.
Cosme Palacio Blanco Reserva 2018, DOCa Rioja
92 points, Tim Atkin MW The selection of Viura grapes from 40+ year old parcels and lightly toasted French oak barrels where the wine is aged for 10 months on its lees, followed by 24 months in bottle, make this a seductive expression of white Rioja with creamy, buttery notes of fine patisserie.
Cosme Palacio Vino de Laguardia 2018, DOCa Rioja
94 points, James Suckling The very embodiment of elegant Laguardia Tempranillo, from vineyards at 500m-600m altitude, aged for 12 months in new French oak: concentrated forest fruits balanced with freshness, mineral notes and a long finish.
Cosme Palacio 1894 Tinto 2017, DOCa Rioja
95 points, Tim Atkin MW 1894 marks the foundation of the winery, and this wine, from low-yielding old vines planted in 1920 at more than 600m altitude, reflects the best combination of tradition and innovation. The parcels are vinified separately and aged for at least 15 months in 500-litre French oak casks.
GLENFARCLAS SINGLE CASK: PERFECTED OVER 53 YEARS
A limited-edition release presented in a bespoke Glencairn Crystal decanter
lenfarclas has launched a special
Gedition of its Highland single malt. Aged for 53 years in a firstfill Oloroso Sherry cask, the natural rich colour, complex flavours and treacle toffee aromas provide a snapshot of the time that the cask was laid down over half a century ago.
In the 1960s Glenfarclas was at the heart of a revolution in the world of whisky that saw distilleries begin to express their own styles and bottle under their own single malt labels. The Speyside distillery began to expand and new warehouses and stills were added, along with a new pipeline to supply more spring water from Ben Rinnes. The company also started bottling under bond and exporting 12-year-old single malt to Switzerland, the US and Germany.
Times may have changed, but it’s what has stayed the same that makes Glenfarclas unique. With over 185 years of family ownership, the company is now under the direction of fifth-generation family member and owner John Grant. The Glenfarclas spirit and family pride continues in the quality of its famous single malt whisky, renowned for its excellence across the world.
The 1960s were a special time at Glenfarclas. Coal remained the primary source of fuel, there was still a curling rink, cattle courts for dairy and only 15 warehouses on site; today there are 38, with four more on the horizon. This period followed a relaxation of post-war barley rationing and the repeal of the 1880 Spirits Act (that banned mashing and distilling simultaneously), nearly doubling production and dramatically dropping the filling price.
Rich and tantalisingly smooth, this limited bottling of 168 is presented in bespoke decanters handcrafted by Glencairn Crystal.
www.polroger.co.uk
01432 262800 Twitter: @Pol_Roger
DUNCAN MCLEAN
Northabout Big cruise liners provide a miniature opportunity that’s worth grabbing
Cargo-laden sailing ships no longer stop off in Orkney waters as they did in the 19th century. The great naval fleets of the first and second world wars, when Scapa Flow was the headquarters of North Atlantic operations, are long gone. Once or twice a week, oil tankers arrive to drink their fill at the Flotta terminal. I see them, newly anchored, as I drive home from the shop in the evening. The following morning they’re gone.
The most visible ships these days – and for us, most economically significant – are the cruise liners. Around 170 stop here every year, mostly between May and September, making Orkney the most popular cruise destination in the UK.
It would be a grossly inattentive shopkeeper who didn’t pay attention to 125,000 visitors strolling past their front door. Especially when the resident population is only 22,000, and the nearest city (Inverness) is five hours away by car and ferry. The winter months are long and dark, and generally very quiet. It’s crucial that we find what these cruisers want – and give it to them.
Unfortunately, what they often want is something no one can give them: miniatures of Scapa Single Malt. Our other whisky distillery, Highland Park, does
oblige with a 10 Year Old miniature but, as we’re often told, “we can get Highland Park at home”. And that’s whether home is Kent or Kentucky. Scapa is a rarer beast, and more sought after. But sadly, 5cl bottles are an extinct species.
Can’t they buy a full-size bottle? In theory, yes, and a few do. However, they’re not allowed to keep them once they’re back on board. A significant part of the liner’s income is from charging steep prices at its bars, for not especially interesting wines and spirits. (A passenger told me yesterday their onboard choice was Grant’s or Grouse.) The last thing they want is anyone smuggling fine single malts into their cabins to drink from their coffee cups.
Any bottles taken onboard must be surrendered to the purser, who only returns them when they reach the ship’s home port. Hence the popularity of miniatures, which can be hidden in a pocket or handbag – or sipped from discreetly while wandering the streets of Kirkwall.
What of the wine, you ask? For the same reason, we sell few bottles to cruise passengers, though we have been able to strike up a relationship with a couple of the smaller, quality-focused liners and top up their stocks whenever they dock here.
Luckily, we see plenty of independent travellers here for a week or a fortnight. If we catch them before they gravitate to the supermarkets, we can supply them with everything they want, and often surprise them with the quality and range of the wine we offer.
Meeting up with retailers from across the country at portfolio tastings this spring, I was envious of how many reported soaring sales during the Covid years. The total lack of tourists in 2020, and the much-reduced numbers in 2021, came close to snuffing out our 163-year-old business. But we survived. And with planned liner visits up in 2023, and hoteliers reporting bumper bookings, it may be that those same tourists, whose absence nearly sunk us, will see us through the impending cost-ofliving crisis, when locals turn to homebrew and Lidl.
Reggio Emilia Duncan McLean is proprietor of Kirkness & Gorie, Kirkwall
