Essex indie starts small with refills

Steve Heminway is setting out his stall with Colne Valley Wines in Essex.

As well as holding wine events in the Earls Colne area, he’s now operate from a concession in Ecolnes Refillery Store.

He’s starting with a range of bottled wines with the intention of working with Sustainable Wine Solutions to provide wine on tap with a refill service.

roughly what you’d expect in a restaurant, but it begins to get difficult on £30-£40 bottles. You’re putting a lot of capital in your stock and you don’t really ever get the margin back. With the current cost of electricity and staffing it just doesn’t work out.”

After selling In Vino Veritas in 2019, Williams started Winehack, an online business which saw him partner up with Jeroboams Trade to fulfill his orders via LCB. Williams says he has continued his relationship with the London wholesaler, which will provide his core range.

“Beyond that, we’ll probably look at a few more quirky, natural options,” he says, “but I don’t want to have too many suppliers. You end up having to meet those minimum orders so your range is naturally flexing quite a lot to accommodate that, and it creates a cash flow nightmare that nobody really wants.”

“Part of our service is going to be sourcing the wines that our customers want,” explains Heminway, “so I think I’ll end up with way too many suppliers.”

No stranger to wine retail, Heminway was with Oddbins in the 90s and went on to own and run bars in London.

“I’m based in Earls Colne, and I know there’s a lot of wine drinkers around here who love the sort of advice and the wines that I’ve given them over the years, so we’re just going to continue to grow that,” he says.

So, will this all lead to his own premises? “Yes,” he says. “I’d do it as a hybrid offer. Wine shop by day and wine bar by night. That’s very much something that I’m looking for it to become.”

• Ben’s Wine & Tapas in Totnes, Devon, closed last month. Ben Watson opened the bar and shop in 2017 as an addition to a business running a number of farm shops in the area. He says: “This has been a difficult decision. However, over the past three years we have faced incredible ongoing difficulty with staffing, with no foreseeable end.”

• The Grape Escape in Ipswich has ceased trading after only five months. Owner Lucy Newton tells The Wine Merchant: “We’ve just not seen the sales we needed. We think that perhaps Ipswich and the specific shop location is just not quite right, coupled with people watching what they are spending money on right now.”.

Vinotopia gets set for barnstorming

Vinotopia’s long awaited Wine Barn in Nailsworth is set to open in late summer.

Managing director Andy Cole says delays have been down to problems with the groundworks, the weather and general vagaries of the building industry.

The pilings (all 92 of them) were drilled before Christmas so, with the footings finally in, a building started to appear out of the ground just a few months ago.

The Wine Barn will comprise wine retail with a luxury farm shop offering cheese and charcuterie.

It’s intended as a destination: somewhere for customers to spend time, relax on a sofa with coffee or wine and enjoy the views of the River Frome.

Meanwhile, the Vinotopia team have continued to trade from The Wine Box, the boutique shop they built nearby when they relocated from their Tetbury premises almost three years ago.

“We’ve been incredibly fortunate to have enjoyed such fantastic success with our boutique Wine Box,” says Cole. “To be in the position to accommodate the growth of the business with a brand-new premises is exciting to say the least.

“We knew that we wanted to enhance our current offering and provide our customers with even more of an experience when they walk through our doors, so the decision to expand our retail focus to include a high-end farm shop was a natural one for us.

“Customers will be able to come along, enjoy the same personalised service when choosing their tipples as they’ve become accustomed to, and grab a tasty bite to either take home or enjoy instore alongside a glass or two from our Enomatic.”

The Wine Barn will also include a refilling station for Sapling gin and vodka.

Jeroboams wants to go to Chelsea

Jeroboams continues to grow with a 10th store opening this summer. The premises in King’s Road, Chelsea, will include an event space and offer weekly in-store tastings.

Jeroboams CEO Matt Tipping says: “We are thrilled to have secured such a fantastic location in one of the most sought-after areas of south west London. Our growth aspirations have long included a shop in the heart of Chelsea and where better than on the King’s Road?”

What planet are they on?

Matt Harris of Planet of the Grapes in London wasn’t present at the Laithwaites Wine Festival at Olympia. Let’s face it, he’s probably not their target audience. But some of his friends were there, and they wondered if Matt may have agreed some sort of buyout with his significantly larger rival.

“Not sure you should be using our company name to sell your wine product,” Harris later tweeted.

Laithwaites has apologised for appropriating the independent trade’s favourite pun. “But they didn’t give me any free wine,” Matt is quick to clarify.

Toodle Pip, Schofield

There’s no point raking over the Philip Schofield saga again here (although the editor does claim to have a friend who works at GMTV, and says the disgraced presenter once threw a tantrum due to her choice of font on a memo). There was talk of Schofield making an appearance at the London Wine Fair, which didn’t happen, as far as anybody can tell, presumably to promote the Italian wine that bears his name. It sounds like it would have been a wasted journey. When in Rome, which sold Schofield’s bag-in-boxes, has now pulled the range from its website.

Chocolate orange wine

We wish nothing but success to Ben Williams as he opens his new wine shop on the site of York’s famous chocolate factory (see page 4). We noticed an intriguing story in The Guardian about London chef Grace Bryson popping a Malteser in a glass of red wine “to create a little treat”. Presumably a similar effect can be achieved with a Terry’s Chocolate Orange segment?