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by Harper's Editorial Team
Published: July 09, 2024
Ben Franks, co-founder of The Canned Wine Co, talks about how the trade can attract talent and investment to give wine a much-needed boost.
The wine industry loves self-sabotage. “Nobody makes money in wine,” we are told, “it’s a lifestyle industry,” with its red-blooming guards spending afternoons in gentlemen’s clubs.
“How do you make a million pounds in the wine business?” goes the joke. “You start with two million pounds and grow a vineyard,” one responds.
You might dismiss this as self-deprecating, and you’ll certainly find plenty of anecdotal evidence from wine merchants across the country that making a living in wine is not easy. But that’s part of the problem. As a wine merchant, you get comfortable “living” because that’s what everyone tells you there’s no money to be made. You stop innovating, writing business plans, or seeking investment. This is a lifestyle business, after all, and no one wants to be unable to enter formulas into spreadsheets and write presentations.
To talk of the wine business as a mere hobby belies the successes happening around us. There is Coterie Holdings buying up the increasingly successful wholesaler Hallgarten & Novum; the giant C&C Group continuing its march forward; companies such as Berry Bros. & Rudd or Tanners; stalwarts such as Direct Wines; and a host of British newspapers from Decanter and Harpers to Drinks Business and The Buyer.
The UK has become a diverse, multicultural and unique hub for wine lovers, with bottles, cans, boxes, barrels and all sorts of things available from all over the world. There are ambitious, mid-sized importers like Wanderlust Wines raising money and investing in bringing some really exciting wines to market. As people’s wine consumption declines, we are responding with a thriving, emerging culture of low-end and no-brand brands that are shaking up the market and giving customers what they want.
However, the latest WSTA market report (March 2024) shows that all wines are still experiencing a steady decline in volume. There is nominal value growth, which previously indicated that people were drinking less but trading more, but with rising glass and packaging costs and increased tariffs, higher prices are no longer a reliable indicator that consumers are buying better.
However, the wine and spirits market is still worth £23.7 billion and, in the face of complex tariff changes, trade has come together to put pressure on new and incoming governments to protect wine businesses. We should be proud of our contribution to the UK economy and do more to celebrate our success publicly – not just to friends in trade but to the wider community.
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Next Generation Trading
It’s not just small and medium-sized wine merchants who have a self-imposed wall. Even our communications experts—the ones who post on social media, blog online, and educate the next generation of wine lovers—work largely for free. Despite the value they add to brands, the currency is in press trips, samples, and dinners. Some are growing and others may start charging for their time, but it won’t be long before the rest of the merchant community is chasing them for their lack of independence while all our colleagues are busy chasing tails over the right way to disclose relationships online. It’s as if we’ve forgotten the years of wine writers pampering and entertaining themselves offline in exchange for a kind word or two, but these days everyone is a critic.
We have pioneered and celebrated wine education through great organizations like WSET, through thousands of tasting events hosted by wine enthusiasts, and through popular films like SOMM, yet when we want to connect with the average wine drinker we choose to intimidate them. We throw at them a textbook full of geology and weather patterns, technical chemistry statistics, and long lists of hard-to-pronounce names.
Yes, I know that’s the exciting thing about wine: there’s so much to learn. But what was it that really excited you when you first found that excitement and love? Maybe it was your host’s passion for a bottle, a story about a winemaker, or a vacation where you had a great drink with someone you love? Why have we forgotten the language of emotion when we talk about and sell our wine?
This organized self-sabotage even creeps into our language. Beer is celebrated (or at least it was) for its craftsmanship and small-business innovation; wine rebellion has been called “natural wine” – as if all the wine we drank was dirty or industrial. I realize this reflects a low-level intervention by the winemaker, but to the consumer, it sounds like “holier than thou” rather than celebration.
I believe that if we spend more time telling positive stories, we can attract talent and investment that will drive value growth and consumer confidence in drinking better wine. People buy from people, and the more we can get back to building those relationships, the more consumers and investors will trust our business. The result will be a market that drinks better, encourages moderation, and continues to drive investment into the professions we all love.
