Q&A: Colin Thorne, Vagabond Wines

Colin Thorne of Vagabond Wines talks to db about his surprise and delight at winning The Other Side of Life Award at this year’s Drinks Business Awards (sponsored by Nicolas Feuillatte,) the importance of good mentors, the strength of the high street, and the myth of the pretentious wine expert stereotype.

Congratulations on winning the award, what does the win mean to you?

I’m absolutely delighted obviously – I’ve never won an award before, so I don’t quite know! I’m surprised and delighted, so it’s wonderful! I think it’s the first time that anyone at Vagabond has won an award individually, as we’ve always won awards as a team, but it’s a great honour and I’m trying to be humble!

What is it that you think made you stand out to the judges?

I hope it was an accumulation of all the things that I’ve been doing in the previous fifteen years really. I’ve got a team now and I like to try to hopefully inspire them and get them on the road to towards a successful career in the wine trade. Hopefully, I’m showing the same kind of passion that I did when I started, to learn what I can every day.

What is the best part of your job?

I love overhearing our customers saying how much they’ve enjoyed something I helped find, which is in the glass front of them. When I can say that I helped bring that to the UK that’s a definite boost. But the job is full of encounters with so many interesting people, both in the trade and as a consumers, that I’d have to put that ahead of everything else.

What are the two achievements you’re most proud of in your wine career?

Firstly seeing the continuing growth of Vagabond. It started with a glossy concept but I had no idea of whether we would make it work or not. Back in 2010 all the talk was of the end of wine sales on the high street but we’ve prospered and offered an experience that people really enjoy. Secondly, while I obviously don’t want any of our brilliant staff to leave us, that we’re fostering a new generation who will be making their own mark on the wine business in years to come.

The judges noted your “attitude and devotion towards the cause and the way you engage consumers with wine in an informative but non-stuffy or pretentious way”. How important is this attitude to you and do you think this is something found in the industry more widely?

I just don’t know how to be stuffy! It’s one thing the wine trade has actually never taught me so I’ve either been lucky in my mentors or this pretentious wine expert stereotype is a myth. Stuffiness is a disguise for lack of knowledge and basic customer service ethos to my mind. Wine is the best cure for stuffiness. It has a wonderful habit of making you open minded, curious and keen to share your ideas, stories and experiences.

Vagabond opened its Clapham store last summer

Have you expanded the wine range at Vagabond?

I buy the wine, we do a lot of our own importation, which we started relatively early when we only had one shop, and we had to take a pallet of Champagne for only one shop and it was quite an interesting experience where we had to find room to store 600 bottles of Champagne! But we have our own warehouse now, which gives us a lot more flexibility to look around the world and say ‘This is good, this is interesting, our customers will like this’. For example this year we started importing an exclusive biodynamic rosé, Chateau Grand Boise, which I’m very excited about. The producer has done a lot of replanting, investing in new winery equipment, it’s the Sainte Victoire appellation, so it is a high altitude, super-fresh and really precise wine. I think it is bringing a wine lover’s credibility to a category that could be seen as a bit ‘as long as it’s pale, its ok’. It tastes good, which is the important thing in being thought of as being a serious style of wine, everyone can sell it, that’s no problem, but you do want it to have real character and quality to it, and these guys have the know-how, the terroir and the determination to do just that.

So what’s next for you and for Vagabond?

We’re still growing. Stephen has a lot of ideas but having just opened in Victoria, Battersea Power Station is the next big project along with the urban winery (which was first revealed by db).

We’ve also been very quiet about our brewery – that is starting to tick over and do well for us, so we’ll start to make a bit more noise about that once the beers are at the level we want them to be. It started this year, wish I could tell you more, but it is really Stephen’s project as he loves beer almost as much as he loves wine, and thought we could do this to add some added value to the business to supply our craft beers. It’s not at any of our sites – like many a brewery in London, it’s in a railway arch in East London and called the Box Car Brewery. It supplies all the sites. We are looking to increase it as much as we can, there’s no point holding back. We have had ample support and customer feedback and awards are on the way, so everything should be good.

Beyond that, Stephen (Finch, founder of Vagabond) loves to stir things up and has talked about certainly expanding outside the M25. We’re at five shops now but we are intending to grow by the end of next year, that would be lovely. Brighton, Amsterdam or Berlin, who knows?