Rob Harrison to head Accolade Wines’ UK sales

Accolade Wines has promoted its director of multiples sales, Rob Harrison, to head the company’s sales in UK and Ireland, CEO Paul Schaafsma has confirmed.

Rob Harrison has been appointed as Accolade’s general manager of sales for the UK and Ireland (Photo: Accolade Wines)

Schaafsma revealed the news in an interview with the drinks business at the launch of Accolade’s new Chilean brand Anakena at the Royal Albert Hall on 4 December.

Schaafsma said he would continue to spend a “substantial amount of time” in the UK overseeing the company’s business here, and would divide his time between the UK and Australia.

“Rob Harrison, who was our sale director, is moving into the general manager of sales role and I will still be spending two weeks in the UK and two weeks in Australia,” Schaafsma confirmed.

“We have a substantial business here in the UK and we have a number of key relationships that we value very much, so I’ll be staying involved in this business.”

The drinks business reported in September on the appointment of Schaafsma as Accolade’s new CEO, a role he took over from John Ratcliffe, who became a non-executive deputy chairman of the company.

“The nice thing for me about the transition into [the CEO] role is that some fantastic work has been done previously by John Ratcliffe in terms of acquisitions that were made, the final acquisition being Anakena,” Schaafsma said.

Accolade Wines is the largest wine company operating in the UK. Accolade Park, in Bristol, is the largest wine warehouse and distribution centre in Europe. It holds six packaging lines, three of which are high-speed bottling lines. Total capacity is in excess of 21m 9-litre cases per year.

Accolade distributes 35 million cases of wine across in 143 countries every year, totalling AUS$1 billion in sales.

Following its recent acquisition of Chile’s Viña Anakena, Accolade is now the only wine company with a presence in all the major New World wine regions.