All for Wine and Wine for All

Sebastian Payne MW, chief buyer for the democratically run Wine Society, tells Clinton Cawood why he has the best job in the wine trade

The Wine Society can honestly claim to put its customers first; each customer owns the business equally, which means the society can prioritise members’ interests over profits.

When joining the society, new members purchase one share for £40, which entitles them to lifetime membership and access to a variety of products and services. Each member is limited to one share each, a policy that has been in place since the society’s inception back in 1874.

One hundred years later, Sebastian Payne MW (picutred, right) was employed by the society, and has since become chief buyer. With a team of five, Payne sources wines from around the world for 100,000 members. It has been a policy, he explains, from the very beginning, to “buy wines from absolutely anywhere in the world”. He explains that they have always tried to get the wine directly from the growers.

This has been the case since the society was founded after an international exhibition in the Albert Hall. “The people who had been organising the exhibition had some Portuguese wines left over in the cellars, and they decided to sell it among themselves,” says Payne. Friendly societies were the fashionable thing in those days, although most were building societies, so The International Exhibition Co-operative Wine Society was born. The society they set up worked very well, so they bought more wine and kept it running. As Payne says, “It is something which happened by accident which turned out to be a very good idea.” There are now other similar societies around the world, but this was the first of its kind.

Maintaining good relationships with growers, and putting the interests of members first, have always been important principles. The founders, Payne explains, “also very intelligently said that we would only sell for ready money, which is probably one of the reasons we’ve survived so long”.

The Wine Society has maintained these founding principles. “We’ve simply become more professional with the times”, says Payne. Originally based in London, the society’s premises moved to Stevenage in the 1960s, a site that the society owns, along with warehouse space and stock that is considered worth laying down for the future. Growth has been steady since the 1980s. “The aim is not to grow in size for its own sake,” Payne says. “We always welcome new members, but not at the expense of the existing ones.” The society’s membership base has been increasing, according to Payne, by 4% to 5% a year.

In terms of revenue, mail orders and the website are the most important for the society, who had a turnover of £54m last year. The society also runs a large number of tastings, but Payne explains that they are important as a way of keeping
in touch with members, not as revenue earners. “They are run on a break-even basis,” he says. The same applies to the lunches held at the society’s headquarters in Stevenage, which allow members to go on a tour of the cellars, followed by a three course meal accompanied by five different wines.

The tour includes the members’ reserves, another service offered by The Wine Society, which provides a temperature-controlled area where members can store wines if they lack the facility to store it themselves.

The society produces own-label wines, a significant part of its sales. “The idea is that they should be yardsticks of their origins,” says Payne.

Despite a commitment to buying wines from all over the world, French wine dominates the society’s list, as close to a speciality as it gets. The society’s French wine selection “hasn’t shrunk as it has in the high street at all, probably because we buy good quality stuff”, says Payne. He goes on to claim that the society has “probably got just about the best range from Alsace and the Midi available in the UK, and we probably buy more top-class Rhône than any other company in the UK too.” Despite this speciality, the society has a strong range of wines from around the world, selling around 600,000 cases a year.

New members usually arrive having been recommended by existing ones, and the society’s membership base is quite varied. “The majority would be urban, semi-rural professionals, but there’s also a section that would be high-earning City earners.” Payne explains that the majority of members are based in the southeast of the UK, but there are also members in places such as Northern Ireland, northern Scotland, Cornwall and Wales.

This diversity in the membership base results in a need for wines at a range of price levels. Payne understands that members join the society “because they’re interested in wine, and want to look beyond the widely advertised and available brands”. At one extreme, the society has a number of wines between £4 and £5 a bottle, but it also currently stocks a 2001 Château d’Yquem at £260 per bottle.

Payne believes that the members are well served. “We seem to be doing things right because they seem to be happy with us, and tell us that,” he says. But job satisfaction seems to play a major role at The Wine Society too. Only his second job in the trade, Payne has worked at the society for 32 years. After working for a shipper that specialised in Hungarian and German wines, Payne moved to The Wine Society in 1974, starting as a promotion manager, responsible for the literature about the wines that was sent to members. He soon became a buyer, and now has a team of five experienced buyers, each specialising, to a certain extent, in different areas of the world.

“The brief is to buy the best wine that we possibly can, obviously with good value for money, and that is very rewarding,” Payne says. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s the best job in the wine trade.”

The wine society’s cv
• Established in 1874
• Moved from London to Stevenage in 1965
• The society bought its site in Stevenage in 1980
• Temperature-controlled cellars completed in 1989
• A third warehouse was completed in 2001
• The society offers a choice of over 800 different wines
• It has 90,000-100,000 members who order wine every year
• It sells 600,000 cases per year
Last year turnover was in the region of £54m

 db  April 2006