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38: The big rebrand
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Frankie Cherry Reserve Wines, Manchester
In a nutshell: Reserve Wines owner Kate Goodman has worked with marketing manager, Frankie, on a complete overhaul of the company’s corporate identity, taking in all five shops and the website.
Why was it time for a rebrand?
“When Kate founded the business back in 2003, her ethos of breaking down boundaries and making wine accessible wasn’t as widely shared as it is now.
“It’s now a given that independent wine merchants say, ‘we’re not stuffy, we’re fun’. So while it’s clear that the original idea behind the business was a really powerful one, and it’s still at the core of the business, it’s no longer enough to say that.
“The wine world is very competitive and there are so many other shops out there, all kind of saying a similar thing, and all selling similar products with similar prices. Obviously we work really hard to hunt out and work with amazing winemakers and producers, but there are lots of different wine companies a customer could possibly choose.
“So we’ve taken the original mission and just unpacked it a little bit and developed it. For us it’s all about attention to detail, giving customers the best service we possibly can and doing the best job we can.”
How long did the whole project take?
“Kate and I started talking about it around this time last year. Then we spent a bit of time thinking about different agencies that we could work with and met with a few of them. It’s important that you really gel with them because you’re going to be working together for a long time. I’d say from the first meeting with the agency to launch, it’s been about 10 months.
“Working with an agency meant that
Reserve Wines has five branches
it was more expensive than going with a freelance designer, for example, but it depends how deep you go. We wanted to go right back to the beginning and think about where we fit in the wine world and how we set ourselves apart. “We’re still figuring out the final costs. All sorts of new things keep popping into our minds like branding our van – we haven’t got around to that yet.”
What’s one of your favourite changes?
“I’m really pleased with all of it, but the small things are fun. We’ve added some really lovely denim aprons and branded corkscrews. We’ve now got beautiful branded tissue paper from a local supplier in Preston. I think it’s the last tissue paper mill still in production in the UK, which is really nice. The tissue paper is a great marketing tool. When a customer buys a bottle for dinner party, wrapped in our tissue, and takes it to somebody’s house, there’s that moment of connection where they think, ‘oh, Reserve Wines – I’ll look them up and pop into the shop’. I think you’re missing a trick if you’re not doing something like that.”
How does the team feel about all the changes?
“I think change can be quite a big deal, but then it can really just breathe such fresh life into something and it kind of energises everyone again. It’s had a really positive impact on the team. I guess we hadn’t really thought of ourselves as a brand before – we were just a neighbourhood wine shop. But now that we’re thinking in that way, it really motivates everyone, because we’re all pulling in the same direction and we all know where we’re heading.”
Tell us about your online activity.
“Pre-Covid, we were very focused on our physical sites. We had a website, but we weren’t really using it for online sales. Obviously the power of digital soon became very apparent but the digital space is so much more competitive, much more saturated. We have other touch points like social media, too, and we work with a social media consultant who comes and does our content for us.”
Ah, that explains the video where manager Garry shows off the new look.
“Yes, that video was all about keeping things fun and just getting across the personality and the people who are part of our brand. Again, that all ties into the customer experience.”
Top left: Boxes and signage have fun with unfamiliar grape varieties
Top right: Branded tissue paper is a conversation starter
Below: Kate Goodman and manager Garry Lui at the rebranded Didsbury branch
Frankie 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.
Big Beltie Cabernet Sauvignon 2021
The juice was unearthed on a buying trip to Xavier Roger in the Languedoc, and the name was inspired by the Belted Galloway breed of cattle, which grows a double layer of hair for winter warmth and so produces a less fatty meat. A decent, affordable Cab, with ripe berry juiciness and a leanness that suits the back story.
RRP: £10.99 ABV: 13.5% House of Townend (01482 638888) houseoftownend.com
Feudo Disisa Granmassenti Perricone 2018
From Sicily’s Monreale DOC comes this inky, brooding, 100% Perricone, a highly-pigmented variety that is in short supply these days and most commonly employed as a blending partner for Nero d’Avola. Definitely a winter warmer, with red-fruit aromas and a moreish, slightly bitter liquorice edge to the palate.
RRP: £21.95 ABV: 14% Jeroboams Trade (020 7288 8888) jeroboamstrade.co.uk
Pierro Fire Gully Chardonnay 2020
Margaret River Chardonnay is given many compliments, but “eminently affordable” isn’t among the most common. But here, for a while at least, is one that hits rare heights for not much more than 20 quid. Lots to love here, including lemon-curd richness, zesty citrus notes, a salty tang and shards of ginger.
RRP: £21.95 ABV: 14% Jeroboams Trade (020 7288 8888) jeroboamstrade.co.uk
Clos Galena Formiga de Seda 2021
The late Miguel Pérez founded this Priorat estate in 1999, excited by its potential to be run on sustainable, ecological lines. His widow Merche Dalmau continues the mission. This 80% Garnacha Blanca, 20% Viognier blend is a joy, with a mixture of barrel fermentation and lees ageing adding intrigue to the citrus elements.
RRP: £19.99 ABV: 15% Daniel Lambert Wines (01656 661010) daniellambert.wine
Poças 20 Years Old Tawny Port
From a producer tracing its history back to 1918, this masterful contribution to the aged tawny canon is 25% Touriga Nacional, 25% Touriga Franca, 20% Tinta Roriz, 20% Tinta Barroca and 10% Tinto Cão. Like the best examples of its category, there’s a lightness and elegance cutting through its nutty, cakey depths, bolstering its credentials as a festive digestif.
RRP: £41.99 ABV: 20% House of Townend (01482 638888) houseoftownend.com
Ferraris Ruchè di Castagnole Monferrato Clàsic 2020
Ruchè isn’t the highest profile grape but in Piedmont it achieves great things, making it deserving of a wider fan base. The aromas of flowers, spices and cherries here are almost worth the entrance fee in their own right, with the oak melding nicely with the earthy and gamey characters on the palate.
RRP: £29 ABV: 15% Ledbury Wine (01684 299579) ledburywine.co.uk
Royal Tokaji Essencia 2009
Essencia is only made in exceptional vintages, 2009 being the seventh, and one of the smallest, yielding fewer than 1,400 37.5cl bottles. Free-run Furmint juice was collected in glass jars and allowed to do its thing at a glacial pace in a cool, dark cellar. How to describe it? An other-worldly symphony of dates, honey, orange peel, figs and countless other exotica. Too good for us.
RRP: £900 ABV: 1.8% Bibendum (0845 263 6924) bibendum-wine.co.uk
Green Roots Sustainable Red Wine
Maybe, when so many wine drinkers have a negative impression of the canned format, simply calling the product “red wine” is a missed opportunity. This is a perfectly serviceable Garnacha, made by Esteban Martín in Cariñena, with a simple fruitiness and honest eco-credentials.
RRP: 14.50 (three-pack) ABV: 13.5% Green Roots Wine (01435 874772) greenrootswine.com
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Favourite Things
Noel Young
NY Wines, Cambridge
Favourite wine on my list For sheer quality and unbelievable value, Lustau Almacenista José Luis González Obregón Amontillado del Puerto. I live (and work) in Valencia seven to 10 days a month and tried this at a local wine bar. You could smell it for hours: it just so nutty and complex, from a solera with an average age of 19 years. Dangerously delicious.
Favourite wine and food match Sparkling Shiraz from the Barossa Valley, ideally with Boxing Day cold meats. It works so well, seems celebratory and is just a great match – and good at getting one back on form after the rigours of Christmas Day.
Favourite wine trip Quinta de la Rosa. Beautiful part of the world, great wines and ports and where I properly met Henry Butler. We had a blast: so much laughing, imbibing and daft behaviour. I lost a fight with a cactus, too.
Favourite wine trade person Obviously Henry Butler, a great mate, one of the most thoughtful and funny people you can meet, who shares my nostalgic sense of humour. We could watch re-runs of Superstars for ages, plus he’s a great drinker.
Favourite wine shop I love John Hoskins’ The Old Bridge Wine Shop in Huntingdon: a precise, well thought-out, and laid-out, selection with always something tasty on the Enomatic.
Rathfinny 2017 cuvée was ruined
A winemaker who was fired after a “monumental cock up” ruined a vintage and cost Rathfinny Wine Estate £500,000 has lost an unfair dismissal claim.
Jonathan Medard took the company to an employment hearing after he was blamed for the problem with the 2017 Classic Cuvée. The tribunal heard that at least some bottles – around a third of the harvest – were not at the correct pressure. Owner Mark Driver was dismayed at the situation and called it “a monumental cock up of (Medard’s) making” and referred to three previous incidents where he felt Medard had made a winemaking error.
A statement from Rathfinny said: “We want to reassure the public that, thanks to rigorous checks in place, none of this wine was ever released to the market.”
Mail Online, October 24
Duty U-turn, but sliding tax remains
The UK government has cancelled next year’s planned freeze to alcohol duty rates, less than a month after announcing the policy.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt confirmed that the freeze – due to come into force in February 2023 – would no longer take place, saving the government £600m a year.
Alcohol duty will now rise in line with inflation, as measured by the retail price index, currently at 12.3%. Such a rise
Magpie
would be the equivalent of 38p on a bottle of wine and £1.35 on a bottle of spirits.
The government said the next steps of its alcohol duty review – which included measures to introduce an 18-month transitional measure for sliding-scale wine duty – would continue as planned.
Just Drinks, October 17
Dickens’s wine habit revealed
Analysis of Charles Dickens’s bank account with Coutts reveals that between 1838 and 1844, he was spending the equivalent of £15,000 a year on wine.
During this period he spent more on wine than on books, toys, music, domestic staff and income tax combined.
Dickens’s well-stocked wine cellar at his death in 1870 included more than 200 bottles of port, 60 bottles of Champagne, 60 bottles of Chablis, 60 bottles of sweet wine, more than 100 bottles of claret and 20 bottles of spirits including brandy and whisky.
