Tony's Diary Articles

Here is the continuation of my customer chats in their new, secret location on the website. I don’t mean it to be secret but I think the new young bosses do. Spread the word, would you?

I really enjoy our Pontfract rosés. It’s not only because the vines are old, but because the man who owns the estate is positively ancient.

We like to say, ‘we stop at nothing’. Our producers certainly don’t stop easily either.

It was 1979 … I’d got to know a hundred or so wine producers around the world and found their lives as fascinating as their wines. Then we had a few thousand enthusiastic club members and customers, keen to learn more.

Our plain-spoken, direct approach to wine had attracted nice, normal people eager to try bottles from all over the world … in direct contrast to the usual (for that time) wine snob with pre-conceived – usually erroneous – ideas on the subject. So, it seemed a great idea to arrange for grower-winemakers and customers to meet.

This was the seed of an idea that became The Vintage Festival. 

Where we left off ...

This is my last Laithwaites letter. The job is passing to the next generation – they have a better sense of what’s going on around here and speak the new language of marketing … which is mostly acronyms. But writing in real English about wine, its people and places, is all I’ve ever done … for 60 years now (I wrote my first letter – six copies for my Dad’s friends – about working in the co-operative de Lussac in 1965).

However, I, as well as my psychiatrist, worry what will become of me if I stop. So, I won’t stop. I’ll just move. I’ve begged a regular page on our website … where you’ll still find me writing about wine, its people and places for as long as I’m coherent! So, switch channels now … over to ‘The Tony Letter’.

For International Women’s Day, I was asked to write about an Outstanding Woman in Wine. I didn’t have to look very far for a prime subject: my dear wife of almost 50 years – Barbara Laithwaite CBE, businesswoman and grape-grower – sitting right opposite me here. Who better?

From the outset, when she first joined me in the business, there was no doubt as to who was to be the Managing Director when we formed our infant Limited Company. It wasn’t me. No surprise was ever expressed by anyone at Barbara’s appointment, as far as I can remember. Apart from by me, maybe.

Women did not, back then, in the ’70s, have many of the top jobs. Hardly any at all. But they were always there, I noticed, in all the companies I ever dealt with, but often went under the misnomer of ‘secretary’. They were hidden away, but they were the ones to go to if you wanted to be certain that something actually got done.

It seemed quite normal to me. I had grown up in a fairly normal family, where women … well, maybe they didn’t ‘rule’ but they certainly ran virtually everything. Nobody ever dared stand in the way of my Nana. And my mother talked and wrote non-stop to get exactly what she wanted for her family.

Barbara was just saying how happy and unstressed our winemaker son, Henry, looks just now. Mentioned it to Kaye, his wife who said that was because he’s escaped their office and is out pruning every day.

I’ve never pruned vines. I wouldn’t be any good at it. No-one would actually let me, anyway, and the idea of being out in the cold all day does not appeal.

But vineyard work during winter is more vital that at any other season; there’s a whole range of tasks essential for maintaining the health of the vines and the quality of future wines. Any gardener knows this period is crucial for setting the stage for the upcoming growing season.

Laithwaites is a family-owned wine company that was founded in 1969 by yours truly. Barbara joined me a year later and the company started growing. It’s now one of the largest direct-to-consumer wine retailers in the world, with operations in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, France, and the US. 

But … no one lives forever. Change is inevitable. 

The company has been going through a generational change in leadership in recent years, as our sons, Henry, Tom and Will, have over the last decade or so taken over the Board, allowing Barbara and now me, this very week, to step down. 

We are extremely proud of ours sons ... and their families. They’ve brought a new vision and strategy to the company, focusing on innovation, digital transformation, customer experience, and sustainability. They understand the modern world which I must admit, at 78, I often find baffling. 

Word is that Bordeaux and Burgundy sales dropped sharply in France’s biggest wine event of 2023 – the French supermarkets ’Fêtes des Vins last autumn. The shiny beacons of light in French retail seem to be the classier wines from Languedoc and Roussillon, commonly called Le Midi.

This might be considered to be consumers ‘trading down’, but I think it’s down to a widespread realisation that the Midi now competes with the rest of France on quality not just price.

The basic Midi wine price has been higher than basic Bordeaux for some time, but now you can find – with good guidance – plenty of wines that now compare with the best of Bordeaux and Burgundy.

They aren’t cheap … but they don’t usually have prices in the hundreds of £s either ... not yet, anyway. The Midi is simply producing wine styles that best suit today’s customers.

Is this the Midi’s moment? I hope so. I’ve been waiting 50 years for it, since my first visit here. The Midi is my favourite wine region ... in the world! And, statistically, it’s also yours. You, our customers have, for decades, bought more wine from this one region than from anywhere else on the planet. Now, please consider buying more of the region’s best wines.

In early December, I took a quick tour there.

2023 began at the French Ambassador’s place (name drop) for the awarding of the new Chevaliers de l’Ordre du Mérite Agricole…we really should have something like this to big up the UK’s good farmers. The French practically worship anyone who can squash a grape or milk a cow …

Pillastro enthusiasts and fans of southern Italy’s robust reds are likely to be familiar with Angelo Maci. He’s the celebrated winemaker from Puglia’s Salento, known for saving 1,000 local vineyards from disaster.

I’ve known Angelo for years. Today he is 80, but still charging on with undiminished passion. As a small farmer himself in the 1980s, Angelo witnessed all Salento’s smallholder growers facing poverty, selling their grapes for very little, while intermediaries made large profits. This led to young people leaving the region and vineyards being abandoned.

The UK doesn’t know where to put all its grapes this year. 2023 is a huge grape harvest and there aren’t enough tanks to put it all in. At Laithwaites – that is our production for Wyfold, Harrow & Hope and Windsor Great Park Vineyard – we are just about OK … we have the space, but we are seeing so many messages from people desperately trying to sell grapes. The last big vintage was 2018 and then everyone danced in the street. But this year … they’re anxious.

It’s a nice crop, the quality is there, but only for those who’ve really watched over their vines like hawks. Because the summer’s been warm and wet which has encouraged exceptional levels of rot and mildew. You have to be out there every day watching for telltale signs and pouncing immediately on any outbreaks. Professeur Peynaud, told us in Bordeaux that “a vineyard is a disaster waiting to happen”! Bit dramatic, but when you think, it’s not very natural having fields of identical plants crammed closely together for 50 years or more. No crop rotation. Diseases love it.