in the middle of a chain reaction

The surge in independent numbers has coincided with a dramatic retrenchment among the multiples. So what’s become of the chains that are still standing? Nigel Huddleston reports

Achange of ownership, a new broom in the buying team or an above-par press tasting are often heralded as signs of a resurgence for the national wine shop chains.

But the new dawn frequently turns out to be a damp squib, ultimately serving merely to emphasise just how the specialist chains have receded into day-to-day anonymity.

As Simon Hill of Artisan Wine & Spirit in Salisbury puts it: “Oddbins seems to have arisen more times than Dracula, but weaker every time. Wine Rack? Surely they aren’t still operating?”

Wine Rack accounted for over 400 of First Quench’s 1,200 stores when the group went belly-up in 2009. Today, the Wine Rack website lists 19, at least one of which, in Roundhay in Leeds, is known to be permanently closed. What is still out there is split between the western fringes of London and a sprinkling across northern England.

In the last 14 years it’s been part of the doomed Conviviality group, and is now owend by Bestway, in a retail arm that includes Bargain Booze, Costcutter and Best-One convenience stores.

Bestway still ranks Wine Rack as part of its development plans but has indicated a future role in a co-branded c-store/wine shop cross.

It already has a trial underway with a Costcutter/Bargain Booze store at

Meopham in Kent, and Wine Rack could form the second half of that equation in future Costcutter refurbishments where the location favours it.

Anyone visiting a Wine Rack today will find it, aesthetically, little changed on a decade ago. Promotions are to the fore and the wine range is almost weirdly broadbrushed. There can be few retailers that display the likes of Sassicaia, top-flight Ricasoli and Errazuriz Don Maximiano alongside Barefoot, Yellow Tail and Casillero del Diablo.

The stores are franchises, with business owners allowed to buy 10% of products from outside their deal with Bestway since 2018.

Sheffield indie StarmoreBoss has a Wine Rack less than 100 yards away, but co-owner Jefferson Boss says “this isn’t an issue”.

He adds: “Our main competitors are more likely to be other independents.

“Wine Rack is more promotion-driven and the range has more recognised brands. Our range is more focused on independent producers.

“People come to us in search of something a bit different and excellent customer service.”

Oddbins – once numbering stores in the hundreds and with many cities and large towns supporting more than one site – won wine merchant of the year 12 times running at the International Wine Challenge in the 1980s and 1990s.

Like Wine Rack, it passed into wholesaler ownership when 37 stores were bought out of administration by European Food Brokers in 2011. It later acquired a batch of Nicolas stores outside London, and was widely heralded as having undergone a rebirth in fortunes in the mid-2010s, driven by range development by buyer and MW Ana Sapungiu.

One trade magazine reported how it had “defied its critics” when it won again at the IWC in 2014.

But that proved to be a false dawn as Whittalls Wine Merchants 1 and 2 – separate companies which operated

Oddbins stores in England and Scotland respectively – went into administration in early 2019.

The administration was finally resolved in 2020 when a new company, Wine Retail Ltd, bought a package of 28 stores. The rest were closed.

Wine Retail Ltd turned out to be owned by Wine Retail Holdings Ltd, which was, in turn owner by European Food Brokers. Ayo Akintola stayed on as managing director of what is now essentially a diminished chain under the same owners.

More branches have since closed and the best available information suggests that there are 17 shops with a peculiar geographic spread: 11 in London, three in Edinburgh, two in Glasgow and one out on its own in Liverpool.

Entry-level price points are a grade or two up on Wine Rack, and a central London store visited by The Wine Merchant had what seemed to be hand-made attempts by the staff to inject some of the humour and energy of yesteryear.

But the absence of an over-arching coherent marketing narrative makes Oddbins as a whole a much less essential wine shopping destination than it once was.

Its natural territory has been largely swept away by the success of independents in the past decade, in many cases set up by talent that Oddbins nurtured.

“They gave the managers relatively free reign in running the shops and that kind of set the blueprint for how many indies now operate,” says Jefferson Boss.

Nicolas – whose UK shops were once bedfellows with Oddbins under Castel Frères ownership – is another diminished presence on the high street, with only seven shops, all in posh parts of north and west London, similar territory to west London indie Jeroboams.

There were 43 Nicolas stores when Spirited Wines bought the UK stores and the rights to continue using the Nicolas name, from Castel Frères, in 2012.

Its UK presence contrasts with that of the brand in Europe, where it turns over €260m a year. There are half a million Nicolas loyalty card holders in France alone.

The only other small/medium specialist wine chain of note is Laithwaites, whose estate of 10 stores comprises eight in the Home Counties west of London, one in Nottingham and one in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, its last new opening in 2017. The stores effectively serve as showrooms for the company’s main feature online.

Majestic is undergoing one of its regular periods of bullish reinvention, after the parting of the ways with Naked Wines, and appears to be viewed by independents as the most serious chain competition.

Simon Hill at Artisan believes “we are able to operate at a level of service and quality that they can’t” but adds: “We certainly don’t underestimate them and will keep a watching brief on what they are doing. But they certainly don’t keep me awake at night and, as long as we keep doing what we’re doing we can persuade customers to try us and stay with us.”

Majestic published a list last year of

76 locations where it’s looking for new sites, though some of these were potential re-sites of existing stores.

It currently has 201 branches, and has added nine in the last three years, though this includes a return to a former Majestic site in Oxford and a new location in Preston, where it had previously operated until 2015.

Potentially more significant, from an independent perspective, is the recent opening of a slimmed-down version of Majestic in Harpenden. The former Santander unit, near the train station, is about half the size of a typical Majestic warehouse and offers a range of around 600 wines, and has a fine wine area with a selection of 72.

“The lessons we learn in Harpenden will be invaluable as we look to further grow our store estate,” says CEO John Colley.

The company has plans for eight new shops this year, in locations including Banstead, Saltash, Thame and Truro. It claims that 88.7% of the population already lives within 10 miles of one of its stores.

Majestic’s eyes seem to be firmly back on bricks and mortar as part of a sustained reinvention strategy which also include aggressive online marketing and promotions.

But it’s hard not to see the likes of Wine Rack and Oddbins as increasingly anachronistic, like heritage rock bands with no new material, failing to forge a contemporary identity in an age when portfolio tastings, masterclasses, bythe-glass, food, Enomatics, YouTube podcasts and more have variously became part of the DNA of modern British wine merchants.