Origin Wine signs MW talent

Origin Wine has recruited former Accolade Wines chief winemaker Barry Dick MW to support the company’s global expansion plans.

Barry Dick MW

Origin, whose brands include Fairhills and Stormhoek and which claims to supply one in three bottles of South African wine sold in the UK, will use Dick as a consultant for its wine supply base.

In addition to its original South African business, the company has expanded since being set up 11 years ago to source grapes from Argentina, Chile, Australia and New Zealand, as well as producing a number of French, Italian and Spanish brands and exclusive label wines.

Prior to his role at Accolade, Dick built up extensive sourcing experience during more than four years of responsibility for Sainsburys’ own label sector.

Commenting on his appointment, Origin Wine’s UK sales director Jon Woodriffe said: “At this stage in our development, we believe it is of paramount importance to have external, experienced, and proven input into the way we do things to ensure the quality of our new customer offer.

“We want to be consistent with our ambitious targets, hence this long term agreement with Barry, to provide his state of the art experience and knowledge from both the supply and the buying side.”

Origin’s managing director Bernard Fontannaz described the move as “a perfect fit,” explaining: “we believe that Barry shares our view and takes on the way to do business and to live the life, which is crucial for our team.”

Meanwhile, Dick hailed Origin as “a dynamic, creative, rapidly expanding and quick moving wine supplier with an increasingly diverse wine portfolio across both New World and Old World geographies.” As a result, he remarked: “It’s an ideal place to add my global experience and love for classic as well as New World wines to deliver consumer appropriate wines.”