A quick history...
Began back in 1969, after student summers working in the Bordeaux vineyards, and lugging wine home on the train.
I and five winegrowers then bought a Ford van with the idea of me bringing their 'real' wines - wines of authenticity and character and delivering directly to customers in the UK.
Called 'Bordeaux Direct', the original business had just five wines on the list (at 13/6d a bottle!) and only 150 customers.
But slowly we began investigating vineyards further up the Dordogne ... and beyond. In the 1970s we were the first
merchants - of any nationality - to prospect and buy wine from the wine regions of southern France ...
Bergerac, Duras, Cahors, Madiran, Gaillac, Minervois, Saint-Chinian and so on eastwards.
Then came other countries; Rioja, Bulgarian Cabernet, even wines from Australia that were first shipped in 1974.
Apart from selling these 'new' wines, the by now rather inappropriately named Bordeaux Direct was unique in still
insisting on only selling wines bottled by the producers; because they simply had more flavour, extra character,
total authenticity and somehow anyone, even a newcomer to wine, could always taste that quality and goodness.
Today...nearly 40 years on, we're now called 'Laithwaites' and deliver wine to over 700,000 customers.
We may be bigger, but we still go 'direct' in the same old way, and so keep costs down.
We have a huge network of supplier contacts, some now the grandchildren of those we started with.
We still only do top-quality, small production wines from producers in every corner of the known wine world.
We are still travelling, still searching out the real good wines.
What I'm up to now ...
If you read my diary (it's what young people call a blog!) you'll see that I now divide my time between my 'writing office' in Henley-on-Thames,
the noisy HQ in Theale, Reading, and our even-noisier little wine-bar round the corner.
Theale has our tiny but award-winning vineyard. I also labour in the Chiltern Hills vineyard of my wife and her chum, Cherry and
in my Côtes de Castillon vineyard in Ste Colombe, near Bordeaux. My current obsession is our merchant-winery at the Chai au Quai, on the Dordogne.
I travel a bit less now I have keen, clever, energetic (younger) buyers. But I still travel the vineyards and will certainly do so as long as I can.
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