Harrow & Fearn taps into the draught wine market

Matthew Harrowven firmly believes that alternative formats are the future of the wine industry. For the past five years he’s been focused on wine on tap, first launching Tap & Tipple, his mobile bar and refill station back in 2018, followed by the opening of Harrow & Fearn in March.

Located in the small market town of Attleborough in Norfolk, Harrow & Fearn offers a refillable wine service alongside a range of local produce including freshly baked bread and buns and small-batch coffee.

Harrowven initially trained as a sommelier before gaining a wine business degree at Plumpton and then working at various agency companies including Bibendum and Hallgarten.

It was while working as a buyer that he began to take an active interest in wine on tap. He says: “At the time the most common questions I’d be asked would be regarding improving efficiencies and making more margin.

“Questions were being raised about savings on bottle weight, reduced packaging, how to make efficiencies in the actual shipping and logistics of it without impacting on the quality of the product.”

Attracted by the sustainability angle, buoyed by the quality of the wines available in KeyKeg and a conviction that consumer habits were changing, he converted a horsebox and launched Tap & Tipple.

“I actually thought wine on tap would be a bit of a flash in the pan at first,” he admits.

“But then considering the way the world was talking about things, people wanted to find a way to reduce their carbon footprint, even in a small manner.

“Sustainable Wine Solutions [Borough Wines] were doing it in London, and I tried some of their wine in the Spar stores and I thought ‘that’s brilliant’, but nobody was doing it regionally.

“I started Tap & Tipple as a sort of concept unit of wine on tap, really with the idea to help independents, be they wine merchants or delis, farm shops or cafés.

“There was an educational mindset, to try and help other independents and say, that this is what’s happening in the world and the wine trade: can we educate you?”

Rather than selling the concept to other retailers, Harrowven quickly discovered that going direct to the end consumer had more impact.

“We did these farmers’ markets and foodie events all over the east of England,” he says, “and as a result we just naturally picked up direct-to-consumer refilling because customers kept seeing us pop up in the same places.

“Off the back of that we launched what we call Friday wine night. It’s a bit like a milk service: customers order online and then they place the bottles out on their doorstep of an evening and we deliver fresh wines.

“We consolidate all the orders into one day, so we’re not using huge amounts of carbon footprint in terms of delivery. Our whole ethos is based around sustainability and minimum waste.

“We did encourage customers to bring their own bottles to us and we still do now that we have a new site. Customers can bring their own vessel, whatever they want, like you get in Europe. You can fill up by the litre and we charge by the litre.”

For now, the horsebox is retired as the taps have been removed and repurposed in the new site. “We’ve got six wines on tap at the moment and space for another two,” says Harrowven.

“We’ve also got five or six bottled wines. These are selected on the basis that I have a connection with them. So Flint is an obvious choice as they are just around the corner from us and Ben [Witchell] and I knew each other at Plumpton. We’ve picked their Bacchus Fumé as it’s a slightly more esoteric product than their Bacchus.”

As for the practicalities of wine on tap, there’s a lot to unpack, but one of the main benefits is the minimal impact on the wine itself.

“It tastes phenomenal,” says Harrowven. “With my sommelier hat on, I’ve always been a fan of big-format bottles anyway, because the quality of the juice will be far better because it’s had far less exposure to that small cork at the top.

“In keg there’s no disruption to the product. It doesn’t come to any plastic contact. It doesn’t get any additional oxygen pickup. It doesn’t get any damage during shipping because it’s in its own aluminium-lined bag while it gets moved, so it’s protected in that sense.

“It’s got great shelf life to it. It’s as fresh as it can be every time you pour a glass.

“There’s no waste. If you put a cork in the top of the bottle, put it in a fridge and come back three days later to give a customer a taster of it, you will probably have to check it yourself as it might be a bit questionable.

“Lindr is one of the easiest tap systems to get on with and I use the KeyKeg system through OneCircle.

“KeyKegs are made of high-grade plastic and it’s highly valuable and easily recyclable.

“KeyKeg themselves are now taking back more and more of them to turn them back into new KeyKegs.

“We store empty ones up until we reach a critical mass, then we have a run to Adnams who we partner up with to recycle.”

Harrowven says he’s not ready to direct import just yet. “We don’t bring in anything ourselves because we’re too small, and Brexit hasn’t helped things,” he says.

“We are set up as a wholesaler, so we could sell it wholesale but we would be the third party in the middle.

“Now that we’ve got an actual site, I would still like to encourage other retailers in the region if they want to see how wine on tap works. If other independents can take some inspiration from what we’re doing, that would be brilliant. We’d like to connect with everyone because I think the way in which it works, from a sustainability perspective, is key. I don’t think glass bottles are the future for the wine industry.”