Wine Society eyes up fine wine growth as demand from members increases

The Wine Society has outlined ambitious targets to grow its fine wine sales by £3.5 million this year, saying there is “real interest amongst our membership for us to take fine wine more seriously”. 

The mutual organisation is looking to top sales of £43 million for fine wine this year, on the back of “fantastic momentum”, which has seen its fine wine sales grow 7% in the last year, its director of wine Pierre Mansour said. Sales of fine wine have risen 60% since 2022, excluding en primeur, but including sales via the website and the new in-bond program that it launched two and a half years ago. The first release programme has already garnered £7.7m last year, up from £5.4million in its first year, he said. “So it is really growing.”

He added that it had been hoped that the first release programme would be incremental, however what it has done is offset the “general decline in en primeur”.

“There’s definitely a lessening of confidence around en primeur from the traditional categories,” he said, although with the upcoming en primeur campaign, he hoped that the pricing would be “just right to re-energize some of that confidence”.

Speaking at a lunch for the Italian spotlight yesterday, Mansour said there was “real interest amongst our membership for us to take fine wine more seriously” and it was already taking steps to do so. As reported by db in September, the organisation announced that it would launch a specialist fine wine service for its customers this year, after appointing former Jeroboams private sales and online division specialist Alex Turnbull to head up the project. Turnbull, who joined in January, is overhauling the Wine Society website to ensure a more tailored experience for its members, a project that is already underway, Mansour added.

Greater relevance

As a mutual cooperative, the Wine Society “has always maintained an ethos of being fair to its members”, he said, “and that will continue” but the potential drawback was that members who buy wine purely for everyday drinking and those who buy fine wine (and many who buy for both) tend to be treated exactly the same way. They are privy to the same offers, even though they are buying at fundamentally different levels and with different intentions.

“We see a huge amount of potential in how we evolve that kind of online experience for members that want to buy fine wine,” he said. “We’re going to become a lot more relevant to those members and tailoring very much to their needs.”

Fine wine members at the Wine Society has risen by 5,000 over the last year to 78,000, he said (total membership of the Wine Society is around 184k) an increase of around 18,000 since 2020. This has been helped by the overall shift of consumers drinking less but better plays, which it said played into the strength of fine wine, as well as a younger demographic being “generally more curious and adventurous in what they tend to consume”.

Italian focus

Last year the organisation rolled out its fine wine spotlights, a two-week window of wine releases that “has helped us dig deep into a country,” Mansour said, and create “quite a buzz amongst our members”.  Its Italian spotlight, which follows similar moves for Spain, Australia and the Rhône, will roll out between 20 April and 3 May, showcasing the Wine Society’s second most important region (after Franc).

Buyer Sarah Knowles said the spotlight was an opportunity to showcase fine wine “beyond the classics”, pointing out that the diversity of choice offered by Italy doesn’t have to be “scary” and can provide a huge source of fine wine for under £35 “without the risk”.

“I wanted members within this offer to feel that they could trust the triaging and trust that I have selected wines that I really believe in and that I think offer value and that everyone will enjoy drinking.”

Members, she said are almost all already buying something from Italy, “whether it’s Prosecco or Amarone or something from Tuscany or Barolo. They’re buying something but I think that small wonders, under £35 is where Italy can really fight toe-to-toe and offer value with any region of the world.”

Broad selection

The release includes a broad section of wines, she said from classics made by Elena Walch, Feudi di San Gregorio, and Isole e Olena, regional wonders that “don’t’ fit neatly into a more traditional selection” but which “overdeliver on price”, and more esoteric choices. These include a skin-contact Catarratto from Sicilian producer Barraco, an amphora-aged Aglianico from Roccomonfina producer, I Cacciagalli, and producers doing different things and “crazy grapes” such as pelaverga piccolo (a rare red grape from Piedmont), Rossese di Dolceacqua from western Liguria, and Schioppettino, found in Friuli Colli Oreintali.

The team are also offering a first releases on wines from Etna, from producers Pietradolce, Benanti, Donnafugat and Tascante, as well as a new vintages from Fontoni and Pieropan, and some mixed cases from Anselma and Produttori di Barbaresco.

The inaugural release of Etna Rosso in bond, has been as much of a departure for producers as it is for Wine Society members, Knowles admitted. As the wines are not from only one vintage, the messaging is around Etna as a region to explore. “If you like Barolo or Pinot Noir, then Nerello Mascalese sits between the two, being more structured than a Pinot Noir,” she said.

The society had struggled to sell wines over £30 from Etna, she said, but offering a first release would help members better understand its potential.

“Hopefully the mechanism will open [higher-end Etna wines] up”, she said.

Finally, Knowles has also dived into the Wine Society’s museum collection to offer a limited release of older vintages from Tuscany and Piedmont, primarily from the 2016 vintage.

This includes a Barbaresco, Rizzi 2016 (RRP: £27), a Barolo, Castello di Verduno 2016 (RRP: £33), and a 4-bottle Barolo Anselma Presentation Case, comprising the 3 communes (Barolo, Monfote and Serralunga) that together are included in their top wine, Familia Anselma Barolo 2016. It is also selling a Barolo Famiglia Anselma 2001 (RRP: £95).

Knowles explained that after the 2016 had been released, the then buyer Sebastian Payne MW, who had been buying Italy for 30 years at that point, had the confidence to recognise it as “the greatest vintage we have ever drunk and ever tasted, and that we have to go big. So we bought quite a lot of the ‘16s, and I managed to put a big note on my stock piece that said, ‘don’t touch for 10 years!’ And we stuck to it, so now that 2026 has come around, wonderfully, this offer coincides with that,” she said.

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