The Sunday Times did one of its famous 'exposés' on the frauds of the UK wine trade. As I only brought in estate -bottled wine, I was dearer than much of the wine trade who had yet, at the time (pre- EEC), to accept the basic principle of Appellation Contrôllée (ie it is supposed to come from where it says it comes from and be made from what it says it’s made from!)
So, on a whim, I wrote cheekily to the Editor.
Sunday Times Letter
Chateau wine on the Cheap
THANK YOU, Insight Consumer Unit for another wine expose on dishonest labelling (Look! Last week) – only six years after the last.
Could you not do a few more? There are some of us in the trade earning a hard and precarious living importing and selling only chateau and estate bottled wines which compete in price with the London bottled brews.
To do this commercially and compete against those of our big brothers who apparently learnt their trade bootlegging in Prohibition America, we’ve had to cut out absolutely everybody and everything generally associated with the fine wine trade.
We live in a railway arch and do nothing finer or more esoteric than driving one great truck between vineyard and consumer – it’s hard and not at all the life wine trade executives are supposed to lead.
We can and do sell really good chateau bottled clarets (from chateau that do actually exist – no fantasy at all) at well under a pound, and many other wines too. Chateau bottling as opposed to merchant bottling either in France or in this country, is the only reasonable guarantee of authenticity and quality.
The French think the average Englishman knows nothing about wine – they are right, and no matter how many full page “guides to a wine label” the British trade prints it has not the slightest intention of doing anything to improve the situation until its dragged screaming into Europe.
Tony Laithwaite
Bordeaux Direct, Railway Arch 36, Goswell Road, Windsor
And he went and printed it ... with full address!!! It prompted HUNDREDS of enquiries!!!!
An 'important customer' said we should ask the Sunday Times to do one of their special offers; 'Instant Cellars'. We did, and, amazingly, they said yes! All of a sudden we were far too big for our Arch. Like 5000 cases in one go!
How do you do that? You hire 5 massive trucks to fetch it. Premises? All we could find was the old Railway Depot at Slough Station. One creaking, ancient lift. And one creaking, ancient warehouseman called Charlie. So you have to do all the repacking yourself. With press-ganged mates. You hire ladies to type the coupons into labels. You put them in your bedroom! - because you have no-where else; your living room being full of people answering the phone.
By the skin of our teeth we did it ... but the result delighted the Sunday Times who said we'd sold more than twice as much as any other Merchant. So could we do it again?
We did. Same sort of mix of unusual French Country wines straight from the producers - people who had never exported before.
Then someone suggested that if we formed a 'Club' we could go beyond just one-off, mixed cases and have a 'List'. We could hold tastings around the country, we could take members to visit the vineyards, we could print a magazine ... and, and, and ...
The Sunday Times sent their Special Offers man Bruce Howell down to Windsor, to decide if we were up to the task. Bruce was a lovely man with more than a touch of the anarchist about him. He saw we were hopelessly ill-equipped, but then – what the hell! – he gave the thumbs up!
The Editor asked Hugh Johnson (who had just published his first Wine Atlas) to be President (to keep a winewise eye on us). The Sunday Times Wine Club was launched in October 1973.
It soared away! I might describe it as a 'wonderful nightmare' for us.
We leased an old World War One explosives factory in Slough. The launch of The Sunday Times Wine Club brought us 5000 members virtually overnight - 10,000 within weeks - and turned us from a small company of four people into the second-largest direct wine merchant in the country ... after the venerable Wine Society.
Wine flooded in, the cases rose skywards and our old fork-lift caught fire; the first of many court cases for Barbara.
The wonderful Club Members were, thankfully, very patient with us. We caused a minor stir. Being considered trendy enough to merit a cartoon in Punch. And our ‘off-the-wall’ tasting notes landed us in Private Eye’s Pseud’s Corner several times. Heady stuff!
Our approach was original though. Existing merchants didn’t try to describe wines, they didn’t bring wines direct from small producers. Some got cross with us and tried to suppress the upstart.
Barbara insisted we take a low profile, heads below the battlements.
She also insisted we grow slowly at a rate we could afford. Her Scottish Accountant dad, Harry (after whom we named our malt whisky) had imbued her with "ne'er a borrower nor a lender be" old-fashioned ways. So we settled into slightly calmer times. We got married.
I was convinced we'd never make much money and anyway, if we did the top tax rate was 98% so what was the point trying? Just enjoy the vineyard trips to meet the growers, and enjoy the customer tastings, and try to stay solvent. Could life be any better?
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