An independent wine merchant is celebrating its first year in business after proving a hit with wine lovers during the pandemic.
The Honest Wine Company, in Borough Street, Castle Donington, turns a year old on Valentine’s Day, having opened its doors on Friday, February, 14, 2020.
After a successful few weeks of shop sales, and the launch of Saturday wine tasting events, fears around Covid-19 led husband and wife Karl and Debbie Shatford make the difficult decision to close.
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Instead they put everything into their website’s e-commerce section so they could quickly take online orders and make deliveries.
They said online sales exceeded expectations and when they were allowed to reopen the shop, they concentrated on combining retail sales with online sales – offering the convenience of with the ability for people to be able to visit an actual shop.
They closed again at the beginning of January but have decided to reopen before the business’s first anniversary on Valentine’s Day. Off-licences have been allowed to stay open during the latest lockdown.
Karl said: “Wine was a hobby that became a business, and we’re so glad that we had the bottle to do it. The pandemic has prevented us from doing certain things during the past year, like wine tasting events and the more social aspects of our wine club.
"But we’ve done far better than we ever would have thought.
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“If the pandemic did one good thing, it forced us to think and act very quickly.”
The Honest Wine Company was chosen describe the couple’s honest love of wine and eagerness to share good products, from mainly smaller, independent vineyards, at affordable prices – typically between £8 and £20 per bottle.
Debbie’s favourite wine is a smooth, red Neropasso from Italy, which she fell in love with when the couple bought a bottle for £30 in a restaurant on their 30th wedding anniversary.
The Honest Wine Company has the same bottle on sale for just £11.90.
Debbie said: “More than anything, we want to thank each of our customers for supporting us during the past year.
“We absolutely love our business and we’re so grateful to have not only survived the pandemic, but to have actually thrived.”